I think the problem overall is that you're doing way too much theory-crafting and brainstorming while lacking all the data ( as in, the whole final game content ).
It's true that investing into lock-pick is just as costly as investing into Way of the XX. Yet more than a few of the abilities are useless if we reason this way :
- Crafting is useless, we can find weapons or if need really be, buy them.
- Repair is useless, merchants can repair.
- Loremaster is useless, merchants can identify.
- Pickpocket is useless, not having it won't prevent you from finishing the game.
- Sneaking is only half useful, because only a few select builds and situations require it.
- Telekinesis is useless I just need a str-based character in the party.
- Earth magic is useless because most enemies are zombies and immune to poison ( considering the beta is to be treated as the full game ).
- etc, etc
Most of those sentences are situational, I'll give that to you, but so is Lock-picking.
What I perfectly agree with is that more locked chests would help give the Lockpicking ability more love and utility. I still think it should do something else rather than just open locks, hence my proposition of Trap disarming, because, well, in the current state of the game, I'd just ignore locked chests if I couldn't open them anyway. No need for whatever's inside.
What I perfectly disagree with is the whole "theory-crafting" issue.
Ability points aren't that rare and precious that you won't be able to finish the game without resorting to carefully planned ability points distribution. Heck, even during the alpha stages where the game was harder it wasn't THAT important to theory-craft our points allocation. Heck bis, as I mentioned elsewhere, it IS possible to rank 5 your Way come level 6 thanks to Lone Wolf. As it turns out, the game is just plain too easy when you know what you're doing. Just disregard threads saying otherwise, they can't be serious!
D:OS isn't Path of Exile where a single point allocation mistake can prove to be a fatal error.
People want to invest into LP and not care about finding the keys, I don't see a problem with that. To each their own. I essentially agree that LP is not very worthy in its current state, albeit not completely useless. Still it's not the end of the world because suddenly you wasted precious points and it's "game over, man!" waiting around the corner, as you almost make it sounds like.
Or maybe they just want us, by design, to look for keys instead of picking locks, and the ability is only here for people failing at the game or hasty players...
Tl;Dr :
- I agree that LockPicking is weak because not really necessary in the current state of the beta,
- I disagree that putting points in LP is a total and complete waste even in the current state of the beta,
- I do not have an issue with LP ( and probably more abilities ) not being needed because you now know the keys locations in subsequent playthroughs ( if any! ),
- I concur that having a few more locked chests, as well as hiding the keys from the ALT view, would help give LockPicking a second wind ; and bashing open chests should damage whatever's inside and/or yield less loots.
- Lockpicks need some attention.
