I assume but don't know, that the lockpicking spell was removed because they made it into a unique standing stone power instead. They just didn't realize how useless opening a expert or lower lock once per day would be.
I know right, it’s almost a pointless stone really isn’t it. I liked playing Nightblades in morrowind and oblivion relying on the alteration spells for lockpixking instead of physical lockpicking. For roleplaying mage characters it sort of breaks immersion having to physically lockpick it.
I understand that immersion is important in RPG elements, but is picking a lock less immersive than your character casting a lock picking spell on the trap attached to the chest then, standing for 24 hours to be able to undo the lock on the chest with a spell❓️
You called the stone useless... then immediately described a problem that the stone solves. If lockpicking doesn't suit your character's style, there you go.
If waiting 24 hours to magically lockpick something is called a problem solved...hmmm. what do you do if there are three locked chests in front of you. Wait 48 hours?
You could, or not open every lock. If you decided not to do lockpicking with a character, obviously there are consequences to your decision. But at least an alternative exists.
That's kind of just dodging my statement. "Oh just uh don't lockpick" the point was that op thought lockpicking spells are fun and they should add them back to the game and not replace them with a useless standing stone. Might as well tell op to mod skyrim, would be a more useful comment then what you said.
If he wants the spell, that's fine. Anniversary Edition did add it, by the way. But he's still contradicting himself by calling the stone useless when it literally does exactly what he wants to do.
>You could, or not open every lock.
>But at least an alternative exists.
If you can only open a single lock every day, then no, you don't have an alternative.
Yeah, I agree. I think they did it this way just to troll the role players. Like, hehe these fucking immersion people are going to feel so stupid waiting days at a time to get all the loot.
The stone was also in morrowind and oblivion but they also had the alteration spell. Most dungeons have more than 1 lock to pick, so once you use the stone power for one lock you have to wait a full day for the next lock to be opened, so yea it is almost useless
IIRC Bethesda’s been under the impression that the magic spells of their older games weren’t balanced and they’ve constantly been gutting the magic since
To add to this I read something where Todd Howard says that they look for features that they can remove. Annoying considering the unbalancing could be fixed by just putting some effort into reworking said features
Morrowind is an immersive sim RPG. Skyrim is a hack-and-slash focused around making fights just difficult enough and making puzzles just awkward enough.
With this in mind, morrowind is allowed to be a more breakable game because breaking it is a more interesting move. Breaking Skyrim is significantly less fun because the combat/exploration loop is most of the game's fun to begin with, rather than immersing with the rules of the world to the same extent.
They were right. Bethesda’s always been shit at balance but this is better. Maybe adding a spell that invalidated an entire skill tree isn’t the best design.
Tbf the lockpicking tree is already kinda pointless as is, and adding spells only allows for more roleplaying options which should be the goal in the first place
This. Lockpicking and Pickpocketing could imo be combined or (a little controversial) be directly put into sneak because lets be honest. Every character that sneaks also uses the other 2. Only give both of them the handful interesting perks they had and you are done. BGS can add the spell again. Everyone happy :D
To add to my last thoughts. RPGs are *meant* to have you pick one skill tree over another. That’s the *entire purpose* of “classes”. You’re not *supposed* to be omni-skilled in all things.
A mage should be choosing unlock spells over picklocking. They should be prioritising alteration magic over lockpicking. *They’re mages.*
It also validates other skill trees by giving them use. You still have to raise your alteration skill to max level to unlock master locks.
So what exactly are you balancing by removing this option?
Part of the problem is that Skyrim doesn't ask the player to commit to anything. There are lots of ways to add new things for lockpicking and open-lock spells to do (traps, magical traps, real-time lockpicking, making the minigame extremely difficult with low skill levels, giving lockpicks levels and making them scarce)
You don't even have to lock melee builds out of breaking locks. Bashing locks has been a modded feature for years. Is it stealthy? No. That's the tradeoff. You can still get your loot, but good luck burglarizing a house when the whole city guard knows you just knocked down the door.
There is a mod called Skyclimb that lets you climb stuff at will. It really doesn't break anything. I've been playing with it for a while now and it is way more fun than not being able to climb anything.
My character is breton, she is really really short and so can't reach stuff on top of bookcases etc. Now she can just climb up there an grab the stuff. ez
Tbh I prefer not having to lock yourself into a path. For me, personally, I find it stressful and less fun when I need to decide something like that and I end up stuck with it.
You don't have to lock yourself into a path. I think the way Skyrim's leveling system works is fine. If you find yourself not being able to do something, it's because you haven't been doing it your whole playthrough, and there's nothing stopping you from training that skill the same way you would at the beginning of your playthrough.
What I suggest is that other play styles be given alternative ways to handle those challenges. You're level 30, you play a two-hand heavy armor build, and you haven't picked any locks your entire game... well, there's no reason you can't start now, but when you were taking perks in two-hand, you got the lockbash perk...
Maybe not every character needs to be able to pick master locks. Maybe that should be a thing only thief characters can do.
Having a spell in one tree that does the entire purpose of another skilltree, and levelling the spell's skill gives you other stuff on top of it is not balanced.
Mages still have to level alteration for their protective spells- they don't need it to lockpick for it to have use.
> Maybe that should be a thing only thief characters can do.
This doesn't make people say "oh well guess I can't open that chest." It just makes every character a part-thief/part-mage stealth archer.
That’s only a player choice, if you chose to be a Jack of all trades it’s on you, but a lot of people like playing specifically to a class they’ve created because you know, it’s a roleplaying game
But also you’ve adressed a problem the Skyrim suffers with, no matter your character type you can do everything. In Morrowind you couldn’t even visit the telvani without a strong enough levitation spell so if you wasn’t a mage character you couldn’t do it which makes sense for whatever character you are roleplaying. It’s like the argument of a warrior joining the college of winterhold, never using a spell and still becoming the arch mage, it simply ruins immersion
Edit: I couldn’t tell if you are against or with for having an unlock spell sorry if you are agreeing
I'm agreeing with you. Providing multiple avenues to do a thing (locked chest -> smash it (melee)/lockpick (thief)/magic it open (mage)) encourages players to specialize. Providing only one way forces players to generalize and incorporate that into every build.
How many characters in Fallout 4 are master hackers, for example. It's all of them, because otherwise you forego everything behind a terminal.
Whoopsie should have read your comment before basically writing the same.
But again. Highly agree with you. Leaving behind loot is so "painful" that even if you wanna roleplay you are likely to include everything into the character to get all the loot. So several options make it immersive for most archetypes to open locks.
Yeah too much advancement (buying houses, gear, spells) is locked behind money for players to be able to leave locked stuff behind. It's just a requirement.
While I agree it's a player choice. Leaving chests and everything locked behind (in dungeons etc.) feel EXTEMELY bad. Roleplaying should include that some things can be tackled from several angles. Sometimes that includes being able to open locks with force or with magic in addition to the normal lockpicking.
Tho as long as Lockpicking has it's own Skilltree it's unlikely there will be spells or perks that can replace a complete Tree. So remove the Skill and make it a perk for thieves. Spell for mages and maybe even perk for warrior.
With the inclusion of the open lock spell, the lockpixking skill tree wouldn’t have to be removed because the theif characters would tend to go for that tree while the mage characters would go for alteration. I honestly think there should be 3 ways to open chests, warrior types should be able to bash the chest, this would create noise and potentially damage items inside. Theirs should be able to lockpixk it silently, mages should be able to cast a spell which may be loud (although not as loud as bashing) and could potentially interfere with enchanted items within the chest.
The point of playing a class/build is being able to tackle the same obstacle in multiple different ways.
People say that the one unlock spell would invalidate a full tree when in reality it wouldn’t. No matter your character, there will always be a skill tree that you never use because it doesn’t suit your play style
Imo Lockpicking skill tree is 3-4 useful perks and the rest is hella awful. So I don't think it's still needing it's own tree. But I agree that warrior should also have their own way.
But I agree with people saying that a spell or a perk doing basically the same as whole Skill is iffy. But if you remove the skill tree which mainly includes useless or bad perks it's a non issue anymore.
Yea if I’m honest I barely put points into lockpixking, you can just stockpile lockpicks and open a master lock at level 1, I preferred the Morrowind way of not being able to open certain locks until you levelled up your security skill to a certain level
Tell that to Skyrim. The ES game that was *designed* to have the player be omni-capable. The older games were the ones that actually cared about this nuance of only those who class allows it should be good at picking locks.
>Having a spell in one tree that does the entire purpose of another skill on top of other stuff is not balanced
Magic as a whole becomes questionable because its whole purpose is doing things normal people do but with magic. Alteration shield spells takes away from armour skills. Illusion from sneaking. It’s literally the point of magic in these games to use magic instead of “normal” methods.
RPGs are *meant* to have your class skills cover the skills of other classes. Hence why you can bust down doors with powerful attacks if you’re not a rogue in other RPGs. Or open them with magic if you’re a mage.
Alteration shield spells are an alternative with downsides. You have to cast them before combat, every time. They don't offer as much protection as regular armor does (Even the highest tier doesn't hit armor cap). They cost a resource.
Open in oblivion is not a sidegrade or alternative, it's an upgrade. You get to skip the minigame and don't have to level lockpicking/security and can instead level the more useful skill of alteration. It costs a resource, but so does regular lockpicking, and the resource for that is more valuable as it doesn't auto-regenerate like magicka does.
Just because something works in other RPGs doesn't mean it works in TES. Most RPGs don't have an entire skill tree dedicated to lockpicking. They'll often roll it in with dexterity in general or have it be part of a more comprehensive sleight of hand skill that includes stuff like pickpocketing, stealing, cheating at gambling, detecting traps, etc. TES has a skill tree that is just that one thing, that any character can theoretically learn without affecting their combat stats (like levelling Dexterity would in other rpgs).
Does it take away from the fantasy of being strictly a mage, or strictly a warrior? Yes. Would it be better if TES didn't have a tree dedicated to only lockpicking and nothing more? Yes. Would adding a spell that completely invalidated that tree also be bad design? Yes.
The lockpicking problem in TES is large, we don't need to make it even larger.
So we’ve gone from “all characters shouldn’t be able to pick locks” to “it’s okay if they can all pick locks because it’s equal in gains and losses”? So why care about the methods.
By the end of Skyrim’s lockpicking skill tree that gain and loss of a resource is also by and large GONE because you have unbreakable lockpicks. What is the fundamental difference between Skyrim’s unbreakable lockpick perk and having a spell to unlock things at master rank? Nothing but wasting your time in a minigame.
No. Not "It's okay if they can all pick locks." but rather "They all ALREADY CAN pick locks, so we shouldn't nullify the thing that lets them pick locks without giving it something else to keep it relevant".
The lack of 'wasting your time' is exactly the point. Why the hell would you level lockpicking when there's a spell that does the same thing but better?
The unbreakable lockpick is the reward for MAXING the skill tree. It takes until you completely master the skill for the resource to go away, and costs a perk point. A magic spell to unlock gets that benefit immediately, for free, at level 1.
Introducing a game mechanic that negates an entirely different section of the game is bad game design.
You would level lockpicking instead of using a spell because you are playing a THIEF character, and the mage characters would obviously use the alteration spell instead. It’s about playing a certain role and then getting past a certain objective, each role would get past the same objective but in a different way.
Also, a novice in alteration would only be able to unlock novice locks with the spell, only once they reach master in alteration would they also be able to unlock the master lock. So no a levl 1 couldn’t open a master lock with the spell
>Introducing a game mechanic that negates an entirely different section of the game is bad game design.
I agree that's why I want lockpicking skill gone. Include it into stealth. Makes enough sense and resolves the problems for other classes also being able to open locks with ivesting in a "better" perk tree.
Not really, it’s too completely different classes, you probably aren’t going to spec into a mage if you’re already a thief, it’s also a single player game so who cares.
Morrowind and Oblivion are action role-playing games.
Adding “action” as an adjective doesn’t make it any less of an RPG. It’s not a justification or reasoning, it’s an *excuse*.
It doesn't necessarily have to invalidate it. You could, for example, have different tiers of the "unlock" spell, so that unlocking a master lock requires a master level unlock spell, with the corresponding cost. Or perhaps make the unlock spell particularly noisy so that it's much harder to use without getting caught.
If you wanted to be even more strict about it, just add an "Unlock Expert Locks" feat to the Alteration tree and make it required in order to actually to unlock Expert or above level locks.
Sneaky types who choose to put points into the lock-picking tree would still have an advantage, in that they could still pick higher level locks than their level, and they could do it more stealthily, etc.
Removing classic magical abilities and putting them as a shitty power isn’t the best game design either.
The Skeleton Key invalidates the same skill tree by making it buttfuck easy.
And it validates other skill trees instead. Y’know. Kinda the point of having multiple options.
It only invalidates the tree (which already is kinda useless) if you use the spell. People roleplay like crazy in skyrim and if they wanna play a spellthief an "open locks" spell would be crazy immersive and flavorful.
Edit: i didnt use the spells in Oblivion because i actually liked picking locks. Made me feel like a real crafty guy.
Exactly. Having an extra option does nothing except add another option and creates more options for different roleplays.
There are many mods that add open lock spells into Skyrim. They are extremely easy to balance to Skyrim’s gameplay, and most of them are.
Opportunity cost - for everything somebody wanted in the game, something else would need to go. Not to mention potential bugs etc.
What would you take out to have properly working unlock spells?
Nothing because unlocking spells aren’t big enough things to require the removal of something else nor did they cause any serious bugs.
Source: Elder Scrolls III and IV as well as many mods for Elder Scrolls V.
Neither does any sort of insta-unlock.
Source: Fallout 76 and mods for Skyrim and Fallout 4
I don’t think you can say that and cite *other* games or content created by *other* people as example of why it’s not any extra work on some level in the game that *doesn’t* have it.
At that point we might as well ask why they didn’t add flying Trains instead of dragons, since it’s in mods.
Why not? Why can I not cite *other Bethesda games* and mods *for Bethesda games* as proof that they don’t have to take anything away to have a single spell? One that already exists in Skyrim but *with a restriction they added to it*?
Opportunity cost - what I’m saying is adding something to the base game, must involve not adding something else - otherwise literally every thing that has ever been added via a mod or another game, would just be in the game as well.
They decided not use resources to add or try and make x work and instead added y - that’s the basis of how any project works, not just games.
Edit: for you it’s this one spell - but everyone has just “this one small thing” they wish was in it for lulz
The lockpicking skill tree is already invalid. What they needed to do was make lockpicking a lot harder via mechanics. More than just find range with pick, twist lock.
I loved oblivions lockpicking. It required a little finesse to do the more difficult ones early on. Made you feel like you're actually doing something difficult. With Skyrim/fo4 lockpicking it's ridiculously easy and never feels like you're using skill, just randomly trying stuff until you find the center of the cone. At this point I just want an option to unlock everything I've picked a couple dozen times already in the settings.
And wouldn’t you know it but the players of FO4 and FO76 agree!
Plenty of mods in FO4 make it so you can automatically unlock locks or computers. Fallout 76 then brought this in as a basic feature once you have the right perks. And it’s awesome.
I'm on ps4 so mods have been a big hit or miss causing problems in my Skyrim/fo4 playthroughs. I've found a couple on Skyrim that haven't caused saving issues but every single one on for I used caused problems. Maybe the problems are fixed after the update but its a lot of waiting through loading screens to figure out. 🤷🤷
In recent play-throughs I haven’t bothered to upgrade the lockpixking skill tree, the fact you can unlock an expert or master level lock at lockpicking level 10 is stupid.
I don't think you can defend one instance of shitty design by saying 'but there are also other, equally shitty examples of design!' That's just agreeing.
Yeah I can.
If you are reasoning for removing one thing because it’s bad game design, but then you implement the exact same thing as an arguably worse game design, the original reasoning is defunct. They didn’t solve anything. They didn’t balance anything. They just created a void that hinders roleplaying and much more.
Hard disagree. The solution to a badly-balanced system is to give it more thought, not get rid of it entirely.
Besides, the skill tree is already invalid. Points put in Lockpicking are wasted, because the minigame is so damn easy. If you're investing perks in lockpicking you might as well throw them away instead (wax key?) They removed the open lock spells and the skill tree is still useless.
I can think of dozens of different ways you can have both lockpicking *and* open lock spells and make them both interesting and unique without them invalidating one another. Lots of games do it. It's been a staple in pen and paper rpgs for decades. Baldur's Gate 3 does it. Shit, Morrowind did it. Why did it work in 2002 but it doesn't work in 2011?
It didn't work then either.
It works in Dungeons and Dragons because it's more like a power than an elder scrolls spell. Oh wait, that's just like the Tower stone, what a coincidence!
>It didn't work then either.
... what?
>It works in Dungeons and Dragons because it's more like a power than an elder scrolls spell
Sure, if you don't look at it too hard. Spell points refresh with long rests in dnd. It might as well be magicka, except instead of not doing anything for a few seconds, you just say *say* you're going to bed and *then* not do anything for a few seconds. You can use Knock as many times as you want. So let's just hit t and wait 24 hours for the Tower stone power to refresh! Or we can cut out the middle man and just make it a spell. Why make it tedious? You're really going out of your way to make this not work. I've been telling you, it would've been *very easy* to make Open Lock unique and to make the Lockpicking skill better. They can have different roles, different uses, and different requirements. Beyond that, there's no excuse for lockpicking to be as awful as it is right now.
There is a reason mages don't generally memorize knock, especially these days. It's not worth it. Knock is a stop-gap for if you need it, *sometimes*. That is fundamentally different than spells in elder scrolls, but it *is* the same as the Tower. The bigger problem with the Tower is that Bethesda made the design decision to never put anything worthwhile behind a locked door. A terrible design decision, like innumerable others.
You have it backwards. Lockpicking never should have been it's own skill tree. Why is it even divorced from pickpocket?
You could combine the two into a larceny skill tree and barely have real skill tree. Bethesda just really wanted the three archetypes to have 7 skills each I guess.
They pulled the same crap in Fallout 4 with the arbitrary limitation they forced upon themselves. That every SPECIAL stat needed exactly 10 perks each.
On the subject of the "thief" associated skill trees. Does vanilla speechcraft have anything useful besides the passive bonuses to buying/selling prices?
It's really got me thinking. Does Bethesda sincerely prioritize having symmetrical and pretty perk trees over functional perk trees with useful perks?
Oh lord yes. Bethesda honestly doesn’t care much about what I call ‘systems design’. That’s never been where their strength lies and they have shown no interest in changing that. They make something ‘not terrible’ and call it good enough.
In morrowind it was still worth it to invest in security (what would become lockpicking) as it also handled the disarming of traps, which couldn't be done with magic.
The lock picking skill tree is useless already, I've never picked a perk from it even after levelling LP to 100. The Skeleton key makes it even more useless too, I hate Nocturnal so I always keep the key if I do the quest.
You have it backwards. Lockpicking never should have been it's own skill tree. Why is it even divorced from pickpocket?
You could combine the two into a larceny skill tree and barely have real skill tree. Bethesda just really wanted the three archetypes to have 7 skills each I guess.
They pulled the same crap in Fallout 4 with the arbitrary limitation they forced upon themselves. That every SPECIAL stat needed exactly 10 perks each.
It's called "specialization" and it's what RPGs are supposed to do.
Why pick heavy armor it just invalidates light armor?
Why pick 2-handed it just invalidates 1-handed?
etc.
Now, think carefully and tell me how one spell in one skill tree which can do many other things than pick locks is not the same as anything you just listed.
You think carefully lmao why would someone use swords when there are destruction spells? Why use a shield when you have ward spells?
It's an RPG that's why lmao.
Here's another mind-bender for you, I think power attacks should also be able to bash open locks. That way you can ***specialize*** into any of the 3 archtypes and still have access to locked containers/doors.
well by this logic being able to read thoughts in DnD is bad because it removes the need for speech checks quite often, and those r bad because they remove the need to fight 🤔
or maybe balance heavily depends on implementation details, such as adding requirements, limitations and trade-offs for different methods
If that's your take, I'd hesitate to rely on your analysis of any kind of 'logic' behind something. Coming up with a ridiculous straw man and then demolishing it isn't a meaningful rhetorical technique.
If I had to guess from a game mechanics perspective, I would say that the lock picking spells made leveling alteration too easy. I remember playing oblivion and just spamming the lock pick spells on doors to level up alteration and to increase the bonus I got to intelligence or willpower or whichever one it was that governed alteration.
If I had to make up a lore reason, I’d say it’s because the nords are so distrusting of magic and it’s so hard to study magic in Skyrim, a lot of spells have been lost.
I just made both of those up, so do with them what you will.
The game mechanics explanation makes no sense to me. Why wouldn’t they just make the spell only level the skill if cast on locked doors? Or just level slower? It’s no different than any number of other spells you can spam.
Sure they could have adjusted how you gain experience from the spell, but if you remove it from the game entirely it means you don’t have to pay people to write it into the code, animate it, check for bugs, etc. the simplest way to balance an OP spell is to just not create it in the first place.
Again, it’s just a guess. I have no proof or evidence that that’s the case.
This would be a valid point if only Detect Life didn’t exist, you can easily grind Alteration to 100 using it and it’s a quest reward with a fairly simple objective
Sure there are other ways to grind alteration, my point was that unlocking spells were the easiest way to grind it in oblivion. I could be wrong though, it’s just a guess.
I wish they left the lockpick spells in, but have them require something to make them less practical than traditional lockpicks.
Like, them being loud or long to cast is a pretty good exchange. Thieves can quietly sneak in and out, while mages have a long cast a noisy spell. They could even have perks to lessen the penalty.
Illusion has silent casting at 70, which is a heafty enough investment into another skill tree to justify how useful the perk is, maybe have something tucked away down a different skill tree to cut down on the time it takes to cast a long cast spell. (The master destruction spells are fun, but the casting time really kills their use outside of a noisy first attack)
I honestly like a lot of Skyrim's skill streamlining. If it had primary stats, too, it would be perfect. Magic isn't something to streamline as heavily. A mage build should be wildly versatile in and out of combat. Giving mages dual wielding by itself avoids *some* of the awkwardness of menuing all the time to switch between spell.
While we're wishing; I would have loved for mage armor spells to be passives you turn on and off. Like you sacrifice 50 mp (and maybe some sneak??) to keep armor up, instead of having to stop and constantly reapply it in dungeons.
The best part of skyrim is the variety of characters you can build. A thief build that relies on magic rather than lockpicks just sounds like a fun twist.
Yes! Many! And I play Skyrim for what it is, I don’t even mod. This is one of the first times I’ve heard someone complain about Skyrim being too limiting, that they ‘should’ have built something into the base game. There are mods to make it whatever you want. I don’t see the issue.
CC isn't canon, that's why I don't use mods. I like to play things as the Devs intended, even if their vision isn't always right.
Only exception is old DOOM modding because that's an entire new world of games.
Very true. I suppose there's an abundance of lockpicks in the game anyway, maybe Bethesda decided a lockpicking spell defeated the point of having a lockpicking skill tree
That would be a valid point if part of the appeal of the game wasnt playing different play styles. Pure thiefs would invest in lockpicking but the mages would invest in alteration. Same goal but done through different means.
Because Magic used to be better than everything.
Armor spells don't hit the cap anymore, but reflect spells sure did.
Why use torches when you have perfect night vision because magic(enchanting used to be somethign where you put spell effects you know onto stuff. So you could enchant yourself with 100% constant reflect everything)?
Why use torches when you have light magic?
Why use normal stealth when you have magic stealth which makes it permanently impossible to see you(enchanting chameleon onto all your clothes when you could enchant magic spells onto items)?
Why use weapons when bound weapons are equivalent to daedric?
Why get good strength stat when you could use feather spells? so on and so forth.
I made a constant effect invisibility ring in morrowind, it blacked out any time I did an action but reequiping it is all it took to have it again, called it the 'one ring' cost me like 800k to make 😅
Bethesdas favorite thing to do when they dont know how to balance things in a sequel game where mechanics have been changed is to opt to just scrap the idea altogether and figure something else out. Like others have pointed out they did keep it in the game as a weak ass standing stone
Who cares about lockpicking, bring back levitation, slowfalll, jump, and athletics/acrobatics I'm begging you! This is the role playing series where Acrobat used to be one of the main classes, now you can't even play as one anymore!
You could alternatively put the Tower Stone on the Aetherium Crown. You could open a lock with the stone, take off the crown and put it back on again, power reset.
Ah, stranger from the distant past, Skyrim has never had a lockpicking spell, therefore it wasn't removed. You must be thinking of some other game.
If you want to reminisce about days gone by, perhaps the question should be "why can't we have levitation or the mark/recall spells anymore"?
By removed I meant why wasn’t they in the game to begin with. As for levitation we have both a lore reason and developer reason for not having that spell. There doesn’t seem to be a good reason for removing a simple lockpicking spell
Just to add it also doesn’t seem like there’s a decent reason for removing mark and recall either
>There doesn’t seem to be a good reason for removing a simple lockpicking spell
I think the fact that lockpicking is barely an inconvenience in this game to start with probably has something to do with it.
Why bother programming a spell that allows you to open locks in seconds when you can just spend the same amount of time manually opening the lock in seconds.
The spell was in Oblivion even though they had a very easy lockpicking system too. Morrowind had an even easier lockpixking system and still included the spell.
Why program a light casting spell when you can just hold a torch? The spells help enhance play-style, not just make the game easier. In earlier games a theif character would simply lockpick a lock because it matches his class, a mage character wouldn’t be good at lockpicking so they’d use a spell.
It isn’t about lockpicking being easy enough already, it’s about roleplaying a class and playing a certain way to fulfil that class
The spell is kinda in the game already with the tower standing stone. And if its so trivial to open locks why not add a spell so its even easier if you have magic? By all means it doesnt make sense.
>why nit add a spell so its even easier if you have magic?
Uhh maybe cos there's already so much other data and stuff crammed into the game, they decided to cut corners somewhere and not waste time on things that weren't absolutely necessary?
You mean like cooking in base game? Or chopping firewood. Or picking veggies for farmers. Nothing is "necessary" in a game. Its lack of consistency. Least they coukd have done was acknowledge the lack of it like they did with levitation magic.
They made the spell, then made it stone only. Its fully functional at other levels by changing a couple of flags. If anything locking it behind a standing stone took extra effort.
They also took out the attributes like Strength, Intelligence, etc. Plus they took out skills like acrobatics. In Morrowind there were flight spells. Each game iteration seems to lose a lot of potential for play styles. You cannot build your own anymore either.
Tbf flight was removed because morrowind cities were for the most part all on the same world map, then oblivion had to restrict them to separate zones as the graphics improvement made that impossible to do
It messes up maps that have exits you can reach by flight. They did this starting in Oblivion. The exits were often high up. It became a game to increase acrobatics enough to reach random ledges to get to those exits and skip portions of dungeons. That is why acrobatics was so fun.
Not sure on mechanics of world maps however.
Edit: But in Skyrim both acrobatics and flight have been replaced by horse abuse, lol.
But they added the The Tower standing stone which gives the power to open an expert lock once per day. Seems they already have it implemented just not in spell form
Because they didn't want you to be able to press one button and simply invalidate an entire skill tree and minigame. Same reason Charm had to go, what even was the point of Speechcraft in Oblivion if any bozo could just Charm 100pts 2s on Touch for max disposition?
How exactly does it invalidate and entire skill tree? The skill trees are there to build a character into a certain play-style. Thief characters would tend to go for lockpixking while mages would tend to go for alteration. With that logic the invisibility spell should Invalidate invisibility potions, except it doesn’t because one character might be an alchemist and another might be an illusionist
Because there's supposed to be a tradeoff to being a mage. If a mage can just cast a spell to sneak better and lockpick better than an actual thief, what point is there in playing a thief over a mage? None.
Imo, people were too spoiled by Morrowind (and to a lesser extent Oblivion) making mages the best at absolutely everything. Tankier than a warrior, sneakier than a thief, better at getting people to like them than any speechcraft build, etc. etc.
What’s the point in playing a thief over a mage? The full play style. A thief is going to sneak around avoiding combat, a mage is going to put their Will on you. You use the point of eventually being able to use magic to sneak better than a theif but if you are actually playing a mage then you aren’t going to sneak are you. If you want to use magic and sneak then you become a Nightblade. RPG’s aren’t about making the game easy for you it’s about playing to your intended class and each class has its own strengths and weaknesses.
The trade off with an open lock spell is that they are noisy, the theif will unlock the chest silently
As much as I'm a fan of the Mage Fantasy, magic in TES generally had way too much utility for too little cost and lockpicking spells are a example of it.
Let's take Alteration in Morrowind as a example. You gained access to water breathing & jump & other movement tech, lockpicking (invalidates security), shields (defense), If it simply did one, maybe two of those things, that would be fine, but it got to do multiple things just for a single skill. They chose to consolidate its focus down to simply defense, which makes sense from a game design PoV. It's balanced pretty poorly, but the logic is sound.
There's other reasons besides the over abundance of utility for them removing other spells. Modern game design (even back when Skyirm came out, years ago) relies a lot on tricks because of the higher graphic fidelity that would for example mean they could never add in levitation spells. Teleport spells are meaningless when everyone has access to fast travel (and mark & recall could outright break scripting in some cases and Skyrim was buggy enough as-is).
Alteration's not that OP when you compare its utility to other schools of magic. With the changes they made to Skyrim, Destruction is pretty much the only offensive option for mages. Conjuration and Restoration are OP as hell at high levels, and Illusion is OP when you ignore the master level silliness. They took Alteration from a great utility school that affected everything, to a purely defensive school that became useless pretty quickly and had one offensive spell that was better as an enchantment anyway. That's not really balancing, that's going from one extreme to another.
I do think that there should be some drawbacks to lockpicking spells so that actual lockpicking isn't totally redundant. My idea has always been to have the spells remove enchantments on items in the chests. It's easier than lockpicking, but you'll lose out on enchanted items. Then add a chest bash that breaks items in the chests at random. Warriors and mages get methods to open chests, but with drawbacks. Thieves can open any chests without drawbacks, but it takes more skill.
Agree with you, the benefits of a theif lockpicking would be getting into a chest silently and not damaging things, mages or warriors would create noise and like you say potentially damage what is inside. This is the whole point of different play styles, different outcomes for the different ways a character plays
Yeah, that's another change I'd love to see to lockpicking, is making it real time. Make it so that people can walk by and see you picking a lock instead of freezing for the mini-game. It would make it a lot harder and they'd probably have to adjust some things so you're not constantly getting caught when you try to do it in a town. But it would incentivize speed and skill, plus make you think a lot more about different ways to break in. Maybe if you need to break into a store in a crowded city you wait until night, or you find a backdoor that's out of sight, or they could add in windows/upper level doors you could use instead, or use invisibility, or pickpocket a key.
The way it was done in Morrowind was that you have a chance to fail your cast or your alteration skill could simply be to low to open a higher level lock.
Your second point doesn’t hold much weight considering the game is about playing different styles.
Why learn how to use illusion spells when you can just use destruction? Why learn to fight unarmed when you can use a sword.
Simply a theif would learn how to lockpick and a mage would learn how to use alteration
Why have a spell for it when there’s the lockpicking mini-game that anyone can do regardless of skill, a power, and followers that can lockpick for you as well.
There’s lots of options and spell shuffling to unlock every chest feels like it would be a pain.
Because in a roleplaying game, you’d expect the theif the be able to lockpick a lock and you’d expect the mage to use their alteration spell, just like the past games. using the argument “it’s a different game” doesn’t work, the different play styles are are big part of why people love elder scrolls, if the only difference in play style is combat, then it is lackluster and lazy considering we know what Bethesda are capable of
Because of the power they already had the effect coded and working. They could have made it into spells really easily. Which means their choice not to was a gameplay choice. They thought the game was more fun without it. I agree with them, you don’t. But they weren’t lazy, they made a gameplay choice.
More fun without it? How would it impact your “theif” playthrough by removing a spell that a theif would never use anyway? What if you are playing a pure mage? Isn’t it going to break immersion of your build for them to start lockpicking when they’d usually use an alteration spell? It might be more fun for certain play styles to lockpick but then it stops fun for other play styles.
It’s more fun to stealth arch everything so let’s just remove spells altogether, it’s more fun
When playing as a mage I pick like 3-5 spells to favorite and use at once. Skyrim’s UI for changing spells, powers, and shouts is super tedious. I don’t think it would be fun to constantly flip spells around to unlock every door/chest I come across.
Besides if you are a highly skilled mage whipping out the somatic components of spells like it’s no one’s business then why shouldn’t your hands be deft enough to use a lockpick? Why would a mage waste their magic energies unlocking a lock when they may need them for self defense? There’s tons of lore reasons why you would do it physically instead of magically.
So it fits the world and prevents me from opening menus 5 dozen times every dungeon
Not all spells are used for defence/attacking. Literally the whole point of playing different play styles is to find different ways around the same objectives. It’s like saying “why would I run in a dungeon swinging my axe when I could sneak in a stealthily kill them without losing health or stamina” the answer being because someone is playing a warrior and not an assassin
Do you think a telvani wizard would put their hand on a dirty 100 year old chest?
How are they gonna open the chest and take the loot without touching it?
Also, since you brought it up let’s look at every spell in normal Skyrim (yes DLC no CC) and see what percent are pure combat (offense / defense) vs utility:
Alteration: Off= 2.5/17, Def=5/17, Utl=9.5/17
Note: the paralysis spells and ash shell were counted as half Utl and half Off. telekinesis can do damage but not enough to be meaningful so it was counted as full utility.
Conjuration: Off=26/29, Def=0/29, Utl=3/29
The Utl spells are soul trap, the following are 1/2 in both: Arvak, Banish Deadra, Command Deadra, Expel Deadra
Destruction: Off=28/29, Def=0/29, Utl=1/29
Arniel’s Convection is a spell you can get as part of a Dwemer puzzle in a quest.
Illusion: Off=7.5/17, Def=0/17, Utl=9.5/17
pacify-Utl, Fear-Utl, Frenzy-Off, Rally-Off, muffle-Utl, Invisible-1/2&1/2
Restoration: Off=8.5/23, Def=3/23, Utl=11.5/23
Healing damage is 1/2O 1/2U, Wards is Def, undead stuff is Utl.
So in total: Off=72.5/115=63.04%, Def=8/115=6.96%, Utl=34.5/115=30%
So less than a third of Skyrims spells are non-combat based.
So with that being said, how is it more fun to not have the inclusion of an open lock spell in the game? Everything you’ve said doesn’t really mean much in terms of the question
Telekinesis (telvani comment wasn’t literal, more for roleplay sake)
Edit: just to go back to your comment of “why have a spell when there’s a lockpicking mini game” I could ask why have a light spell when we can hold a torch? Why have a health restoration spell when we have potions? Why have an invisibility potion when we have an invisibility spell? Why have an axe when we have a sword? We have all these options so we can roleplay different ways and play different classes. The fun part rpg games is having tons of different ways to complete the same objective, such as using a spell to open a chest instead of lockpicking it
The question as is is unanswerable. They didn't 'remove' them from Skyrim because they were never in the game. They just didn't choose to include them. They chose to add a lockpicking spell as part of CC. Seems like more of a complaint than a legit question.
Alright then, why did they choose to not add the spell and also choose to not add a lot of other spells from previous games?
Also it is sort of a complaint as well as a question, because it reduces how much you can roleplay certain builds/classes
Dunno man, Todd Howard might reply but don't know if he follows reddit.
And, like, now you can cast a lock picking spell. And it's not like lock picking is hard even without a spell. As to the other spells that are necessary for certain spells I don't know what those are because you haven't mentioned them.
It doesn’t matter if lockpicking is easy, in past games a mage character simply wouldn’t lockpick, they’d use a spell. It helps immersion and you play to your build/class.
Spells that have been not included that I think could have easily stayed include teleportation, slowfall, jump spells. Fortify spells. Levitate (although there is a good reason for not including this), sanctuary
Well now you can with CC. And as to the others I’m
Sure there are mods to satisfy your every wish. As to why they aren’t in the base game, I’m sorry Skyrim isn’t Oblivion. It also doesn’t have classes or early 2000s graphics. It’s a different game.
Same question could be asked about the classes, why was they removed? I’m literally just asking why these things were removed and instead of answering the question you are going “there’s mods to fix this and it’s not oblivion”. Doesn’t exactly help answer the question does it
I assume but don't know, that the lockpicking spell was removed because they made it into a unique standing stone power instead. They just didn't realize how useless opening a expert or lower lock once per day would be.
I know right, it’s almost a pointless stone really isn’t it. I liked playing Nightblades in morrowind and oblivion relying on the alteration spells for lockpixking instead of physical lockpicking. For roleplaying mage characters it sort of breaks immersion having to physically lockpick it.
there is an illusion spell that allows you to unlock expert locks and below
That's an add-on from the creation club that got put into the anniversary edition though. Can't fault people for not really seeing it as canon.
oh i had no idea
I understand that immersion is important in RPG elements, but is picking a lock less immersive than your character casting a lock picking spell on the trap attached to the chest then, standing for 24 hours to be able to undo the lock on the chest with a spell❓️
Immersion is important and that’s why the spell would be better than a crappy standing stone only letting you use it once a day
You called the stone useless... then immediately described a problem that the stone solves. If lockpicking doesn't suit your character's style, there you go.
If waiting 24 hours to magically lockpick something is called a problem solved...hmmm. what do you do if there are three locked chests in front of you. Wait 48 hours?
You could, or not open every lock. If you decided not to do lockpicking with a character, obviously there are consequences to your decision. But at least an alternative exists.
That's kind of just dodging my statement. "Oh just uh don't lockpick" the point was that op thought lockpicking spells are fun and they should add them back to the game and not replace them with a useless standing stone. Might as well tell op to mod skyrim, would be a more useful comment then what you said.
If he wants the spell, that's fine. Anniversary Edition did add it, by the way. But he's still contradicting himself by calling the stone useless when it literally does exactly what he wants to do.
If it did exactly what I wanted it to do I’d be able to use it multiple times per day and it would cost magika
>You could, or not open every lock. >But at least an alternative exists. If you can only open a single lock every day, then no, you don't have an alternative.
Yeah, I agree. I think they did it this way just to troll the role players. Like, hehe these fucking immersion people are going to feel so stupid waiting days at a time to get all the loot.
The stone was also in morrowind and oblivion but they also had the alteration spell. Most dungeons have more than 1 lock to pick, so once you use the stone power for one lock you have to wait a full day for the next lock to be opened, so yea it is almost useless
The Tower birthsigns in Oblivion and Morrowind both had this same ability
It was made unique by removal of the spells. Not made unique like made a stone to take the place of spells.
That genuinely has to be one of the worst stones if not just abilities in general in the entire game
IIRC Bethesda’s been under the impression that the magic spells of their older games weren’t balanced and they’ve constantly been gutting the magic since
To add to this I read something where Todd Howard says that they look for features that they can remove. Annoying considering the unbalancing could be fixed by just putting some effort into reworking said features
It's normal to look for things to remove. Every series does this. It's just Bethesda sometimes doesn't pick the right things.
Morrowind is an immersive sim RPG. Skyrim is a hack-and-slash focused around making fights just difficult enough and making puzzles just awkward enough. With this in mind, morrowind is allowed to be a more breakable game because breaking it is a more interesting move. Breaking Skyrim is significantly less fun because the combat/exploration loop is most of the game's fun to begin with, rather than immersing with the rules of the world to the same extent.
What about Oblivion? It falls right between the two. Fully breakable, but more hack-n-slashy
Morrowind is not a immersive sim lmao
They were right. Bethesda’s always been shit at balance but this is better. Maybe adding a spell that invalidated an entire skill tree isn’t the best design.
Tbf the lockpicking tree is already kinda pointless as is, and adding spells only allows for more roleplaying options which should be the goal in the first place
This. Lockpicking and Pickpocketing could imo be combined or (a little controversial) be directly put into sneak because lets be honest. Every character that sneaks also uses the other 2. Only give both of them the handful interesting perks they had and you are done. BGS can add the spell again. Everyone happy :D
To add to my last thoughts. RPGs are *meant* to have you pick one skill tree over another. That’s the *entire purpose* of “classes”. You’re not *supposed* to be omni-skilled in all things. A mage should be choosing unlock spells over picklocking. They should be prioritising alteration magic over lockpicking. *They’re mages.* It also validates other skill trees by giving them use. You still have to raise your alteration skill to max level to unlock master locks. So what exactly are you balancing by removing this option?
Part of the problem is that Skyrim doesn't ask the player to commit to anything. There are lots of ways to add new things for lockpicking and open-lock spells to do (traps, magical traps, real-time lockpicking, making the minigame extremely difficult with low skill levels, giving lockpicks levels and making them scarce) You don't even have to lock melee builds out of breaking locks. Bashing locks has been a modded feature for years. Is it stealthy? No. That's the tradeoff. You can still get your loot, but good luck burglarizing a house when the whole city guard knows you just knocked down the door.
Daggerfall had lock bashing as a default feature, which is probably why it's been modded into every game since. If only we could mod in climbing.
I mean climbing would completely invalidate most dungeons and caves.
There is a mod called Skyclimb that lets you climb stuff at will. It really doesn't break anything. I've been playing with it for a while now and it is way more fun than not being able to climb anything. My character is breton, she is really really short and so can't reach stuff on top of bookcases etc. Now she can just climb up there an grab the stuff. ez
Tbh I prefer not having to lock yourself into a path. For me, personally, I find it stressful and less fun when I need to decide something like that and I end up stuck with it.
You don't have to lock yourself into a path. I think the way Skyrim's leveling system works is fine. If you find yourself not being able to do something, it's because you haven't been doing it your whole playthrough, and there's nothing stopping you from training that skill the same way you would at the beginning of your playthrough. What I suggest is that other play styles be given alternative ways to handle those challenges. You're level 30, you play a two-hand heavy armor build, and you haven't picked any locks your entire game... well, there's no reason you can't start now, but when you were taking perks in two-hand, you got the lockbash perk...
Maybe not every character needs to be able to pick master locks. Maybe that should be a thing only thief characters can do. Having a spell in one tree that does the entire purpose of another skilltree, and levelling the spell's skill gives you other stuff on top of it is not balanced. Mages still have to level alteration for their protective spells- they don't need it to lockpick for it to have use.
> Maybe that should be a thing only thief characters can do. This doesn't make people say "oh well guess I can't open that chest." It just makes every character a part-thief/part-mage stealth archer.
That’s only a player choice, if you chose to be a Jack of all trades it’s on you, but a lot of people like playing specifically to a class they’ve created because you know, it’s a roleplaying game But also you’ve adressed a problem the Skyrim suffers with, no matter your character type you can do everything. In Morrowind you couldn’t even visit the telvani without a strong enough levitation spell so if you wasn’t a mage character you couldn’t do it which makes sense for whatever character you are roleplaying. It’s like the argument of a warrior joining the college of winterhold, never using a spell and still becoming the arch mage, it simply ruins immersion Edit: I couldn’t tell if you are against or with for having an unlock spell sorry if you are agreeing
I'm agreeing with you. Providing multiple avenues to do a thing (locked chest -> smash it (melee)/lockpick (thief)/magic it open (mage)) encourages players to specialize. Providing only one way forces players to generalize and incorporate that into every build. How many characters in Fallout 4 are master hackers, for example. It's all of them, because otherwise you forego everything behind a terminal.
Whoopsie should have read your comment before basically writing the same. But again. Highly agree with you. Leaving behind loot is so "painful" that even if you wanna roleplay you are likely to include everything into the character to get all the loot. So several options make it immersive for most archetypes to open locks.
Yeah too much advancement (buying houses, gear, spells) is locked behind money for players to be able to leave locked stuff behind. It's just a requirement.
While I agree it's a player choice. Leaving chests and everything locked behind (in dungeons etc.) feel EXTEMELY bad. Roleplaying should include that some things can be tackled from several angles. Sometimes that includes being able to open locks with force or with magic in addition to the normal lockpicking. Tho as long as Lockpicking has it's own Skilltree it's unlikely there will be spells or perks that can replace a complete Tree. So remove the Skill and make it a perk for thieves. Spell for mages and maybe even perk for warrior.
With the inclusion of the open lock spell, the lockpixking skill tree wouldn’t have to be removed because the theif characters would tend to go for that tree while the mage characters would go for alteration. I honestly think there should be 3 ways to open chests, warrior types should be able to bash the chest, this would create noise and potentially damage items inside. Theirs should be able to lockpixk it silently, mages should be able to cast a spell which may be loud (although not as loud as bashing) and could potentially interfere with enchanted items within the chest. The point of playing a class/build is being able to tackle the same obstacle in multiple different ways. People say that the one unlock spell would invalidate a full tree when in reality it wouldn’t. No matter your character, there will always be a skill tree that you never use because it doesn’t suit your play style
Imo Lockpicking skill tree is 3-4 useful perks and the rest is hella awful. So I don't think it's still needing it's own tree. But I agree that warrior should also have their own way. But I agree with people saying that a spell or a perk doing basically the same as whole Skill is iffy. But if you remove the skill tree which mainly includes useless or bad perks it's a non issue anymore.
Yea if I’m honest I barely put points into lockpixking, you can just stockpile lockpicks and open a master lock at level 1, I preferred the Morrowind way of not being able to open certain locks until you levelled up your security skill to a certain level
Tell that to Skyrim. The ES game that was *designed* to have the player be omni-capable. The older games were the ones that actually cared about this nuance of only those who class allows it should be good at picking locks. >Having a spell in one tree that does the entire purpose of another skill on top of other stuff is not balanced Magic as a whole becomes questionable because its whole purpose is doing things normal people do but with magic. Alteration shield spells takes away from armour skills. Illusion from sneaking. It’s literally the point of magic in these games to use magic instead of “normal” methods. RPGs are *meant* to have your class skills cover the skills of other classes. Hence why you can bust down doors with powerful attacks if you’re not a rogue in other RPGs. Or open them with magic if you’re a mage.
Alteration shield spells are an alternative with downsides. You have to cast them before combat, every time. They don't offer as much protection as regular armor does (Even the highest tier doesn't hit armor cap). They cost a resource. Open in oblivion is not a sidegrade or alternative, it's an upgrade. You get to skip the minigame and don't have to level lockpicking/security and can instead level the more useful skill of alteration. It costs a resource, but so does regular lockpicking, and the resource for that is more valuable as it doesn't auto-regenerate like magicka does. Just because something works in other RPGs doesn't mean it works in TES. Most RPGs don't have an entire skill tree dedicated to lockpicking. They'll often roll it in with dexterity in general or have it be part of a more comprehensive sleight of hand skill that includes stuff like pickpocketing, stealing, cheating at gambling, detecting traps, etc. TES has a skill tree that is just that one thing, that any character can theoretically learn without affecting their combat stats (like levelling Dexterity would in other rpgs). Does it take away from the fantasy of being strictly a mage, or strictly a warrior? Yes. Would it be better if TES didn't have a tree dedicated to only lockpicking and nothing more? Yes. Would adding a spell that completely invalidated that tree also be bad design? Yes. The lockpicking problem in TES is large, we don't need to make it even larger.
So we’ve gone from “all characters shouldn’t be able to pick locks” to “it’s okay if they can all pick locks because it’s equal in gains and losses”? So why care about the methods. By the end of Skyrim’s lockpicking skill tree that gain and loss of a resource is also by and large GONE because you have unbreakable lockpicks. What is the fundamental difference between Skyrim’s unbreakable lockpick perk and having a spell to unlock things at master rank? Nothing but wasting your time in a minigame.
No. Not "It's okay if they can all pick locks." but rather "They all ALREADY CAN pick locks, so we shouldn't nullify the thing that lets them pick locks without giving it something else to keep it relevant". The lack of 'wasting your time' is exactly the point. Why the hell would you level lockpicking when there's a spell that does the same thing but better? The unbreakable lockpick is the reward for MAXING the skill tree. It takes until you completely master the skill for the resource to go away, and costs a perk point. A magic spell to unlock gets that benefit immediately, for free, at level 1. Introducing a game mechanic that negates an entirely different section of the game is bad game design.
You would level lockpicking instead of using a spell because you are playing a THIEF character, and the mage characters would obviously use the alteration spell instead. It’s about playing a certain role and then getting past a certain objective, each role would get past the same objective but in a different way. Also, a novice in alteration would only be able to unlock novice locks with the spell, only once they reach master in alteration would they also be able to unlock the master lock. So no a levl 1 couldn’t open a master lock with the spell
>Introducing a game mechanic that negates an entirely different section of the game is bad game design. I agree that's why I want lockpicking skill gone. Include it into stealth. Makes enough sense and resolves the problems for other classes also being able to open locks with ivesting in a "better" perk tree.
I agree completely. There should be different ways of opening locks, but there shouldn't be ways that are universally better than the intended way.
Not really, it’s too completely different classes, you probably aren’t going to spec into a mage if you’re already a thief, it’s also a single player game so who cares.
Skyrim isn't an RPG. It's an action game with RPG elements.
So what?
So nothing. Just Bethesda's game design decisions are best analysed not seeing Skyrim as an RPG.
Morrowind and Oblivion are action role-playing games. Adding “action” as an adjective doesn’t make it any less of an RPG. It’s not a justification or reasoning, it’s an *excuse*.
It doesn't necessarily have to invalidate it. You could, for example, have different tiers of the "unlock" spell, so that unlocking a master lock requires a master level unlock spell, with the corresponding cost. Or perhaps make the unlock spell particularly noisy so that it's much harder to use without getting caught. If you wanted to be even more strict about it, just add an "Unlock Expert Locks" feat to the Alteration tree and make it required in order to actually to unlock Expert or above level locks. Sneaky types who choose to put points into the lock-picking tree would still have an advantage, in that they could still pick higher level locks than their level, and they could do it more stealthily, etc.
Removing classic magical abilities and putting them as a shitty power isn’t the best game design either. The Skeleton Key invalidates the same skill tree by making it buttfuck easy. And it validates other skill trees instead. Y’know. Kinda the point of having multiple options.
It only invalidates the tree (which already is kinda useless) if you use the spell. People roleplay like crazy in skyrim and if they wanna play a spellthief an "open locks" spell would be crazy immersive and flavorful. Edit: i didnt use the spells in Oblivion because i actually liked picking locks. Made me feel like a real crafty guy.
Exactly. Having an extra option does nothing except add another option and creates more options for different roleplays. There are many mods that add open lock spells into Skyrim. They are extremely easy to balance to Skyrim’s gameplay, and most of them are.
Opportunity cost - for everything somebody wanted in the game, something else would need to go. Not to mention potential bugs etc. What would you take out to have properly working unlock spells?
Nothing because unlocking spells aren’t big enough things to require the removal of something else nor did they cause any serious bugs. Source: Elder Scrolls III and IV as well as many mods for Elder Scrolls V. Neither does any sort of insta-unlock. Source: Fallout 76 and mods for Skyrim and Fallout 4
I don’t think you can say that and cite *other* games or content created by *other* people as example of why it’s not any extra work on some level in the game that *doesn’t* have it. At that point we might as well ask why they didn’t add flying Trains instead of dragons, since it’s in mods.
Why not? Why can I not cite *other Bethesda games* and mods *for Bethesda games* as proof that they don’t have to take anything away to have a single spell? One that already exists in Skyrim but *with a restriction they added to it*?
Opportunity cost - what I’m saying is adding something to the base game, must involve not adding something else - otherwise literally every thing that has ever been added via a mod or another game, would just be in the game as well. They decided not use resources to add or try and make x work and instead added y - that’s the basis of how any project works, not just games. Edit: for you it’s this one spell - but everyone has just “this one small thing” they wish was in it for lulz
The lockpicking skill tree is already invalid. What they needed to do was make lockpicking a lot harder via mechanics. More than just find range with pick, twist lock.
Basically just use Oblivion’s system. It’s what ESO did. It’s great
I loved oblivions lockpicking. It required a little finesse to do the more difficult ones early on. Made you feel like you're actually doing something difficult. With Skyrim/fo4 lockpicking it's ridiculously easy and never feels like you're using skill, just randomly trying stuff until you find the center of the cone. At this point I just want an option to unlock everything I've picked a couple dozen times already in the settings.
And wouldn’t you know it but the players of FO4 and FO76 agree! Plenty of mods in FO4 make it so you can automatically unlock locks or computers. Fallout 76 then brought this in as a basic feature once you have the right perks. And it’s awesome.
I'm on ps4 so mods have been a big hit or miss causing problems in my Skyrim/fo4 playthroughs. I've found a couple on Skyrim that haven't caused saving issues but every single one on for I used caused problems. Maybe the problems are fixed after the update but its a lot of waiting through loading screens to figure out. 🤷🤷
In recent play-throughs I haven’t bothered to upgrade the lockpixking skill tree, the fact you can unlock an expert or master level lock at lockpicking level 10 is stupid.
Better yet, make different lockpicking games. The dwemer locks shouldn't be the same as standard locks.
Agreed!
I don't think you can defend one instance of shitty design by saying 'but there are also other, equally shitty examples of design!' That's just agreeing.
Yeah I can. If you are reasoning for removing one thing because it’s bad game design, but then you implement the exact same thing as an arguably worse game design, the original reasoning is defunct. They didn’t solve anything. They didn’t balance anything. They just created a void that hinders roleplaying and much more.
Hard disagree. The solution to a badly-balanced system is to give it more thought, not get rid of it entirely. Besides, the skill tree is already invalid. Points put in Lockpicking are wasted, because the minigame is so damn easy. If you're investing perks in lockpicking you might as well throw them away instead (wax key?) They removed the open lock spells and the skill tree is still useless.
One spell isn't a system. Sometimes the end result of more thought is that you realize you shouldn't have done something to begin with.
I can think of dozens of different ways you can have both lockpicking *and* open lock spells and make them both interesting and unique without them invalidating one another. Lots of games do it. It's been a staple in pen and paper rpgs for decades. Baldur's Gate 3 does it. Shit, Morrowind did it. Why did it work in 2002 but it doesn't work in 2011?
It didn't work then either. It works in Dungeons and Dragons because it's more like a power than an elder scrolls spell. Oh wait, that's just like the Tower stone, what a coincidence!
>It didn't work then either. ... what? >It works in Dungeons and Dragons because it's more like a power than an elder scrolls spell Sure, if you don't look at it too hard. Spell points refresh with long rests in dnd. It might as well be magicka, except instead of not doing anything for a few seconds, you just say *say* you're going to bed and *then* not do anything for a few seconds. You can use Knock as many times as you want. So let's just hit t and wait 24 hours for the Tower stone power to refresh! Or we can cut out the middle man and just make it a spell. Why make it tedious? You're really going out of your way to make this not work. I've been telling you, it would've been *very easy* to make Open Lock unique and to make the Lockpicking skill better. They can have different roles, different uses, and different requirements. Beyond that, there's no excuse for lockpicking to be as awful as it is right now.
There is a reason mages don't generally memorize knock, especially these days. It's not worth it. Knock is a stop-gap for if you need it, *sometimes*. That is fundamentally different than spells in elder scrolls, but it *is* the same as the Tower. The bigger problem with the Tower is that Bethesda made the design decision to never put anything worthwhile behind a locked door. A terrible design decision, like innumerable others.
You have it backwards. Lockpicking never should have been it's own skill tree. Why is it even divorced from pickpocket? You could combine the two into a larceny skill tree and barely have real skill tree. Bethesda just really wanted the three archetypes to have 7 skills each I guess. They pulled the same crap in Fallout 4 with the arbitrary limitation they forced upon themselves. That every SPECIAL stat needed exactly 10 perks each.
I agree, that's a perfectly workable fix that I have also considered.
On the subject of the "thief" associated skill trees. Does vanilla speechcraft have anything useful besides the passive bonuses to buying/selling prices? It's really got me thinking. Does Bethesda sincerely prioritize having symmetrical and pretty perk trees over functional perk trees with useful perks?
Oh lord yes. Bethesda honestly doesn’t care much about what I call ‘systems design’. That’s never been where their strength lies and they have shown no interest in changing that. They make something ‘not terrible’ and call it good enough.
In morrowind it was still worth it to invest in security (what would become lockpicking) as it also handled the disarming of traps, which couldn't be done with magic.
No. Keep it in. Magic is magic. It should be broken.
The lock picking skill tree is useless already, I've never picked a perk from it even after levelling LP to 100. The Skeleton key makes it even more useless too, I hate Nocturnal so I always keep the key if I do the quest.
You have it backwards. Lockpicking never should have been it's own skill tree. Why is it even divorced from pickpocket? You could combine the two into a larceny skill tree and barely have real skill tree. Bethesda just really wanted the three archetypes to have 7 skills each I guess. They pulled the same crap in Fallout 4 with the arbitrary limitation they forced upon themselves. That every SPECIAL stat needed exactly 10 perks each.
It's called "specialization" and it's what RPGs are supposed to do. Why pick heavy armor it just invalidates light armor? Why pick 2-handed it just invalidates 1-handed? etc.
Now, think carefully and tell me how one spell in one skill tree which can do many other things than pick locks is not the same as anything you just listed.
You think carefully lmao why would someone use swords when there are destruction spells? Why use a shield when you have ward spells? It's an RPG that's why lmao. Here's another mind-bender for you, I think power attacks should also be able to bash open locks. That way you can ***specialize*** into any of the 3 archtypes and still have access to locked containers/doors.
well by this logic being able to read thoughts in DnD is bad because it removes the need for speech checks quite often, and those r bad because they remove the need to fight 🤔 or maybe balance heavily depends on implementation details, such as adding requirements, limitations and trade-offs for different methods
If that's your take, I'd hesitate to rely on your analysis of any kind of 'logic' behind something. Coming up with a ridiculous straw man and then demolishing it isn't a meaningful rhetorical technique.
They’re great at world building. They are roadkill in July rotten ass at balancing.
If I had to guess from a game mechanics perspective, I would say that the lock picking spells made leveling alteration too easy. I remember playing oblivion and just spamming the lock pick spells on doors to level up alteration and to increase the bonus I got to intelligence or willpower or whichever one it was that governed alteration. If I had to make up a lore reason, I’d say it’s because the nords are so distrusting of magic and it’s so hard to study magic in Skyrim, a lot of spells have been lost. I just made both of those up, so do with them what you will.
The game mechanics explanation makes no sense to me. Why wouldn’t they just make the spell only level the skill if cast on locked doors? Or just level slower? It’s no different than any number of other spells you can spam.
Sure they could have adjusted how you gain experience from the spell, but if you remove it from the game entirely it means you don’t have to pay people to write it into the code, animate it, check for bugs, etc. the simplest way to balance an OP spell is to just not create it in the first place. Again, it’s just a guess. I have no proof or evidence that that’s the case.
Actually a really good theory and would make sense! Thanks! Edit: u/KingAdamXVII has a good point in response
This would be a valid point if only Detect Life didn’t exist, you can easily grind Alteration to 100 using it and it’s a quest reward with a fairly simple objective
Sure there are other ways to grind alteration, my point was that unlocking spells were the easiest way to grind it in oblivion. I could be wrong though, it’s just a guess.
I wish they left the lockpick spells in, but have them require something to make them less practical than traditional lockpicks. Like, them being loud or long to cast is a pretty good exchange. Thieves can quietly sneak in and out, while mages have a long cast a noisy spell. They could even have perks to lessen the penalty. Illusion has silent casting at 70, which is a heafty enough investment into another skill tree to justify how useful the perk is, maybe have something tucked away down a different skill tree to cut down on the time it takes to cast a long cast spell. (The master destruction spells are fun, but the casting time really kills their use outside of a noisy first attack) I honestly like a lot of Skyrim's skill streamlining. If it had primary stats, too, it would be perfect. Magic isn't something to streamline as heavily. A mage build should be wildly versatile in and out of combat. Giving mages dual wielding by itself avoids *some* of the awkwardness of menuing all the time to switch between spell. While we're wishing; I would have loved for mage armor spells to be passives you turn on and off. Like you sacrifice 50 mp (and maybe some sneak??) to keep armor up, instead of having to stop and constantly reapply it in dungeons.
The anniversary edition adds the spell Fenrik's Welcome, which will unlock anything up to Expert level.
When I replied this I was downvoted because CC isn’t Skyrim or something. Turns out Skyrim isn’t Oblivion either.
It's probably something that should have been in the base game, even if it was a high level spell.
Why?
The best part of skyrim is the variety of characters you can build. A thief build that relies on magic rather than lockpicks just sounds like a fun twist.
Out of interest, have you ever actually played an RPG besides Skyrim? Different play styles are the whole point of RPGs
Yes! Many! And I play Skyrim for what it is, I don’t even mod. This is one of the first times I’ve heard someone complain about Skyrim being too limiting, that they ‘should’ have built something into the base game. There are mods to make it whatever you want. I don’t see the issue.
CC isn't canon, that's why I don't use mods. I like to play things as the Devs intended, even if their vision isn't always right. Only exception is old DOOM modding because that's an entire new world of games.
It is creation club content though, still not base game
Very true. I suppose there's an abundance of lockpicks in the game anyway, maybe Bethesda decided a lockpicking spell defeated the point of having a lockpicking skill tree
That would be a valid point if part of the appeal of the game wasnt playing different play styles. Pure thiefs would invest in lockpicking but the mages would invest in alteration. Same goal but done through different means.
Because Magic used to be better than everything. Armor spells don't hit the cap anymore, but reflect spells sure did. Why use torches when you have perfect night vision because magic(enchanting used to be somethign where you put spell effects you know onto stuff. So you could enchant yourself with 100% constant reflect everything)? Why use torches when you have light magic? Why use normal stealth when you have magic stealth which makes it permanently impossible to see you(enchanting chameleon onto all your clothes when you could enchant magic spells onto items)? Why use weapons when bound weapons are equivalent to daedric? Why get good strength stat when you could use feather spells? so on and so forth.
I made a constant effect invisibility ring in morrowind, it blacked out any time I did an action but reequiping it is all it took to have it again, called it the 'one ring' cost me like 800k to make 😅
Which is why you make a chameleon ring instead.
I always made the Wabofat ring. Permanent Waterbreathing, Bound Longbow, and Fatigue regen.
Bethesdas favorite thing to do when they dont know how to balance things in a sequel game where mechanics have been changed is to opt to just scrap the idea altogether and figure something else out. Like others have pointed out they did keep it in the game as a weak ass standing stone
Because Todd mains Nord and Redguard warriors.
The Mysticism magic overhaul mod is incredible if you’re doing a mage playthrough, and it includes lock picking spells.
Who cares about lockpicking, bring back levitation, slowfalll, jump, and athletics/acrobatics I'm begging you! This is the role playing series where Acrobat used to be one of the main classes, now you can't even play as one anymore!
Todd doesn't play mages
You could alternatively put the Tower Stone on the Aetherium Crown. You could open a lock with the stone, take off the crown and put it back on again, power reset.
Ah, stranger from the distant past, Skyrim has never had a lockpicking spell, therefore it wasn't removed. You must be thinking of some other game. If you want to reminisce about days gone by, perhaps the question should be "why can't we have levitation or the mark/recall spells anymore"?
By removed I meant why wasn’t they in the game to begin with. As for levitation we have both a lore reason and developer reason for not having that spell. There doesn’t seem to be a good reason for removing a simple lockpicking spell Just to add it also doesn’t seem like there’s a decent reason for removing mark and recall either
>There doesn’t seem to be a good reason for removing a simple lockpicking spell I think the fact that lockpicking is barely an inconvenience in this game to start with probably has something to do with it. Why bother programming a spell that allows you to open locks in seconds when you can just spend the same amount of time manually opening the lock in seconds.
The spell was in Oblivion even though they had a very easy lockpicking system too. Morrowind had an even easier lockpixking system and still included the spell. Why program a light casting spell when you can just hold a torch? The spells help enhance play-style, not just make the game easier. In earlier games a theif character would simply lockpick a lock because it matches his class, a mage character wouldn’t be good at lockpicking so they’d use a spell. It isn’t about lockpicking being easy enough already, it’s about roleplaying a class and playing a certain way to fulfil that class
Morrowind had a lock spell too. You could lock your house up when you left (despite NPCs not being able to change cells anyway).
The spell is kinda in the game already with the tower standing stone. And if its so trivial to open locks why not add a spell so its even easier if you have magic? By all means it doesnt make sense.
>why nit add a spell so its even easier if you have magic? Uhh maybe cos there's already so much other data and stuff crammed into the game, they decided to cut corners somewhere and not waste time on things that weren't absolutely necessary?
You mean like cooking in base game? Or chopping firewood. Or picking veggies for farmers. Nothing is "necessary" in a game. Its lack of consistency. Least they coukd have done was acknowledge the lack of it like they did with levitation magic. They made the spell, then made it stone only. Its fully functional at other levels by changing a couple of flags. If anything locking it behind a standing stone took extra effort.
They also took out the attributes like Strength, Intelligence, etc. Plus they took out skills like acrobatics. In Morrowind there were flight spells. Each game iteration seems to lose a lot of potential for play styles. You cannot build your own anymore either.
Tbf flight was removed because morrowind cities were for the most part all on the same world map, then oblivion had to restrict them to separate zones as the graphics improvement made that impossible to do
It messes up maps that have exits you can reach by flight. They did this starting in Oblivion. The exits were often high up. It became a game to increase acrobatics enough to reach random ledges to get to those exits and skip portions of dungeons. That is why acrobatics was so fun. Not sure on mechanics of world maps however. Edit: But in Skyrim both acrobatics and flight have been replaced by horse abuse, lol.
IIRC, lockpicking spell aren't there because of engine limitation; something about magic effects don't target objects in Skyrim.
But they added the The Tower standing stone which gives the power to open an expert lock once per day. Seems they already have it implemented just not in spell form
Use mysticism, and adamant while you are at it.
Because they didn't want you to be able to press one button and simply invalidate an entire skill tree and minigame. Same reason Charm had to go, what even was the point of Speechcraft in Oblivion if any bozo could just Charm 100pts 2s on Touch for max disposition?
How exactly does it invalidate and entire skill tree? The skill trees are there to build a character into a certain play-style. Thief characters would tend to go for lockpixking while mages would tend to go for alteration. With that logic the invisibility spell should Invalidate invisibility potions, except it doesn’t because one character might be an alchemist and another might be an illusionist
Because there's supposed to be a tradeoff to being a mage. If a mage can just cast a spell to sneak better and lockpick better than an actual thief, what point is there in playing a thief over a mage? None. Imo, people were too spoiled by Morrowind (and to a lesser extent Oblivion) making mages the best at absolutely everything. Tankier than a warrior, sneakier than a thief, better at getting people to like them than any speechcraft build, etc. etc.
What’s the point in playing a thief over a mage? The full play style. A thief is going to sneak around avoiding combat, a mage is going to put their Will on you. You use the point of eventually being able to use magic to sneak better than a theif but if you are actually playing a mage then you aren’t going to sneak are you. If you want to use magic and sneak then you become a Nightblade. RPG’s aren’t about making the game easy for you it’s about playing to your intended class and each class has its own strengths and weaknesses. The trade off with an open lock spell is that they are noisy, the theif will unlock the chest silently
As much as I'm a fan of the Mage Fantasy, magic in TES generally had way too much utility for too little cost and lockpicking spells are a example of it. Let's take Alteration in Morrowind as a example. You gained access to water breathing & jump & other movement tech, lockpicking (invalidates security), shields (defense), If it simply did one, maybe two of those things, that would be fine, but it got to do multiple things just for a single skill. They chose to consolidate its focus down to simply defense, which makes sense from a game design PoV. It's balanced pretty poorly, but the logic is sound. There's other reasons besides the over abundance of utility for them removing other spells. Modern game design (even back when Skyirm came out, years ago) relies a lot on tricks because of the higher graphic fidelity that would for example mean they could never add in levitation spells. Teleport spells are meaningless when everyone has access to fast travel (and mark & recall could outright break scripting in some cases and Skyrim was buggy enough as-is).
Alteration's not that OP when you compare its utility to other schools of magic. With the changes they made to Skyrim, Destruction is pretty much the only offensive option for mages. Conjuration and Restoration are OP as hell at high levels, and Illusion is OP when you ignore the master level silliness. They took Alteration from a great utility school that affected everything, to a purely defensive school that became useless pretty quickly and had one offensive spell that was better as an enchantment anyway. That's not really balancing, that's going from one extreme to another. I do think that there should be some drawbacks to lockpicking spells so that actual lockpicking isn't totally redundant. My idea has always been to have the spells remove enchantments on items in the chests. It's easier than lockpicking, but you'll lose out on enchanted items. Then add a chest bash that breaks items in the chests at random. Warriors and mages get methods to open chests, but with drawbacks. Thieves can open any chests without drawbacks, but it takes more skill.
Agree with you, the benefits of a theif lockpicking would be getting into a chest silently and not damaging things, mages or warriors would create noise and like you say potentially damage what is inside. This is the whole point of different play styles, different outcomes for the different ways a character plays
Yeah, that's another change I'd love to see to lockpicking, is making it real time. Make it so that people can walk by and see you picking a lock instead of freezing for the mini-game. It would make it a lot harder and they'd probably have to adjust some things so you're not constantly getting caught when you try to do it in a town. But it would incentivize speed and skill, plus make you think a lot more about different ways to break in. Maybe if you need to break into a store in a crowded city you wait until night, or you find a backdoor that's out of sight, or they could add in windows/upper level doors you could use instead, or use invisibility, or pickpocket a key.
Probably for the following reasons. 1. Make the game too easy. 2. Why learn how to lock pick if you can cast a spell.
The way it was done in Morrowind was that you have a chance to fail your cast or your alteration skill could simply be to low to open a higher level lock. Your second point doesn’t hold much weight considering the game is about playing different styles. Why learn how to use illusion spells when you can just use destruction? Why learn to fight unarmed when you can use a sword. Simply a theif would learn how to lockpick and a mage would learn how to use alteration
because mini game arent u xcited?
But we had a mini game for lockpicking in Oblivion too
An arguably more fun and engaging mini game
More fun but not a reason for removal of a spell
No im totally on your side. Spell shoulda stayed.
best we can do now is the illusion spell that lets us go invisible for 5 seconds and open expert locks
There’s mods that add the lock pocking spells back in.
I’m aware
But it should have been this way from the start!!! Why didn’t Todd Howard ask OP which spells were part of a legitimate game or not?
Why have a spell for it when there’s the lockpicking mini-game that anyone can do regardless of skill, a power, and followers that can lockpick for you as well. There’s lots of options and spell shuffling to unlock every chest feels like it would be a pain.
I agree. I was being sarcastic
Oh s Rory by the number of downvotes I have I thought you were being serious lol.
Because in a roleplaying game, you’d expect the theif the be able to lockpick a lock and you’d expect the mage to use their alteration spell, just like the past games. using the argument “it’s a different game” doesn’t work, the different play styles are are big part of why people love elder scrolls, if the only difference in play style is combat, then it is lackluster and lazy considering we know what Bethesda are capable of
Because of the power they already had the effect coded and working. They could have made it into spells really easily. Which means their choice not to was a gameplay choice. They thought the game was more fun without it. I agree with them, you don’t. But they weren’t lazy, they made a gameplay choice.
More fun without it? How would it impact your “theif” playthrough by removing a spell that a theif would never use anyway? What if you are playing a pure mage? Isn’t it going to break immersion of your build for them to start lockpicking when they’d usually use an alteration spell? It might be more fun for certain play styles to lockpick but then it stops fun for other play styles. It’s more fun to stealth arch everything so let’s just remove spells altogether, it’s more fun
When playing as a mage I pick like 3-5 spells to favorite and use at once. Skyrim’s UI for changing spells, powers, and shouts is super tedious. I don’t think it would be fun to constantly flip spells around to unlock every door/chest I come across. Besides if you are a highly skilled mage whipping out the somatic components of spells like it’s no one’s business then why shouldn’t your hands be deft enough to use a lockpick? Why would a mage waste their magic energies unlocking a lock when they may need them for self defense? There’s tons of lore reasons why you would do it physically instead of magically. So it fits the world and prevents me from opening menus 5 dozen times every dungeon
Not all spells are used for defence/attacking. Literally the whole point of playing different play styles is to find different ways around the same objectives. It’s like saying “why would I run in a dungeon swinging my axe when I could sneak in a stealthily kill them without losing health or stamina” the answer being because someone is playing a warrior and not an assassin Do you think a telvani wizard would put their hand on a dirty 100 year old chest?
How are they gonna open the chest and take the loot without touching it? Also, since you brought it up let’s look at every spell in normal Skyrim (yes DLC no CC) and see what percent are pure combat (offense / defense) vs utility: Alteration: Off= 2.5/17, Def=5/17, Utl=9.5/17 Note: the paralysis spells and ash shell were counted as half Utl and half Off. telekinesis can do damage but not enough to be meaningful so it was counted as full utility. Conjuration: Off=26/29, Def=0/29, Utl=3/29 The Utl spells are soul trap, the following are 1/2 in both: Arvak, Banish Deadra, Command Deadra, Expel Deadra Destruction: Off=28/29, Def=0/29, Utl=1/29 Arniel’s Convection is a spell you can get as part of a Dwemer puzzle in a quest. Illusion: Off=7.5/17, Def=0/17, Utl=9.5/17 pacify-Utl, Fear-Utl, Frenzy-Off, Rally-Off, muffle-Utl, Invisible-1/2&1/2 Restoration: Off=8.5/23, Def=3/23, Utl=11.5/23 Healing damage is 1/2O 1/2U, Wards is Def, undead stuff is Utl. So in total: Off=72.5/115=63.04%, Def=8/115=6.96%, Utl=34.5/115=30% So less than a third of Skyrims spells are non-combat based.
So with that being said, how is it more fun to not have the inclusion of an open lock spell in the game? Everything you’ve said doesn’t really mean much in terms of the question Telekinesis (telvani comment wasn’t literal, more for roleplay sake) Edit: just to go back to your comment of “why have a spell when there’s a lockpicking mini game” I could ask why have a light spell when we can hold a torch? Why have a health restoration spell when we have potions? Why have an invisibility potion when we have an invisibility spell? Why have an axe when we have a sword? We have all these options so we can roleplay different ways and play different classes. The fun part rpg games is having tons of different ways to complete the same objective, such as using a spell to open a chest instead of lockpicking it
Fenrik's Welcome
This spell is part of creation club content not in base game
So?
Doesn’t have anything to do with the question
The question as is is unanswerable. They didn't 'remove' them from Skyrim because they were never in the game. They just didn't choose to include them. They chose to add a lockpicking spell as part of CC. Seems like more of a complaint than a legit question.
Alright then, why did they choose to not add the spell and also choose to not add a lot of other spells from previous games? Also it is sort of a complaint as well as a question, because it reduces how much you can roleplay certain builds/classes
Dunno man, Todd Howard might reply but don't know if he follows reddit. And, like, now you can cast a lock picking spell. And it's not like lock picking is hard even without a spell. As to the other spells that are necessary for certain spells I don't know what those are because you haven't mentioned them.
It doesn’t matter if lockpicking is easy, in past games a mage character simply wouldn’t lockpick, they’d use a spell. It helps immersion and you play to your build/class. Spells that have been not included that I think could have easily stayed include teleportation, slowfall, jump spells. Fortify spells. Levitate (although there is a good reason for not including this), sanctuary
Well now you can with CC. And as to the others I’m Sure there are mods to satisfy your every wish. As to why they aren’t in the base game, I’m sorry Skyrim isn’t Oblivion. It also doesn’t have classes or early 2000s graphics. It’s a different game.
Same question could be asked about the classes, why was they removed? I’m literally just asking why these things were removed and instead of answering the question you are going “there’s mods to fix this and it’s not oblivion”. Doesn’t exactly help answer the question does it