ACTUAL EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHTS WHEN PLAYING THE GAME FOLLOWS:
It became completely predictable very quickly, and because I KNEW there was a key around, I had no reason to bother with lockpicking. Every time I was right, and I found the key I needed nearby.
I’m not griping that I wasted points into Lockpick. I didn’t. I never bothered boosting it past the starting level of 1, and I never needed to.
To be honest, nor did I. Or, well, I tried to amp it up a bit just in case, but seeing I wasn't getting nowhere with the ability, I stopped wasting points into it.
We only really miss the infamous tavern first floor rooms by not having lockpicking. Maybe also the Mayor's room in the back.
Every other locks we can open. Keys are always nearby. And easy to spot because of the ALT overlay. from the top of my head, only two keys are "some distance" from the chest they open : one in the Black Cove subsection with the levers puzzle, and the key for the chest behind the two guards at the lighthouse. Like, it's 10 meters away.
That was my actual experience, so don’t just derisively throw up a hand and dismiss it as “theorycrafting”. It isn’t.
But what sparked my flame in the first place is precisely you mentioning the rarity and preciousness of ability points, right from the very first post. Isn't that the way to theorycrafting ? When you begin to consider where points should be allocated, and where they would be wasted ?
But anyway that's not important.
Again I agree that lockpicking is lacking some bang for its buck. I don't think that being able to entirely ignore it in later playthroughs is "bad design", though. That's what I was defending. I'd even say it's good design when an ability isn't mandatory to the game. The "bad design" is that it's not even desirable.
I think it's in FallOut 1 that Lockpicking isn't that necessary too, but I like the fact that it's a mandatory skill when you want to do a speedrun. I shall have to re-visit those speedruns, but I seem to remember a specific locked door. The key is given through the storyline or something, but with a high enough LP you can just dismiss the whole key acquisition and go right through it. This kind of design I like, and I'm a bit saddened that it seems impossible to pick the lock of Evelyn's house.
I can only hope the rest of the game will feature some situations where having lock-picking would really help and be part of a quest...
