Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General No XP from disarm and lockpicking

How do you guys feel about not getting any xp award for disarming a trap instead of blowing it up or lockpicking a chest instead of burning it with your mage?

I agree there should be XP awards - part of the fun of a multi-path RPG is getting XP for sneaking etc. without combat as much as possible.

Especially since lockpicking seems pretty pointless, as you can always use magic to open doors and containers and still loot everything inside (unless I'm missing something?) - yeah, this would've been nice.

+1

See Baldur's Gate 2, Knights of the Old Republic II or Deus Ex: Human Revolution for why I disagree with the good addition.

If you rather lockpick a door for XP than find the key (since that's not rewarded); that's not good gamedevelopment, but just adding degerative gameplay. Not to mention force one path. Especially fatal in a game that's about giving you as many options as possible.

Speaking of games like BG2 (or at least NWN1 and 2) - in those titles, lockpicking was a viable alternative to simply bashing/fireballing a container because fragile items within the container (like potions) would break if you used force to open the container. It was simple, logical, and good for gameplay balance. Of course, this wouldn't help with doors, but just a thought.

Either way, as it is, lockpicking is pretty much a junk skill in D:OS.

Yeah, but still bashing the chests should have some downsides. And now for most containers it's faster, less expensive, and doesn't require any skills. So lockpicking is pretty useless.

Yes and this is why you shouldn't focus on lockpicking because it's juste useless

I agree.

I just think the solution would be, as stated, making destroying the container riskful (so there are still various options, sensible ones), rather than reward XP for lockpicking only, making all other options (including ironically, getting the key) less optimal. Which is, quite frankly, stupid.

I disagree, at least in the early game. I started playing with no rogue in the party and got stopped by most of the Murder quests. Without lockpick I couldn't, for example, get into the murderer's house. I did try bashing the door, yes, but my characters weapon degraded to zero for maybe three or four pixels of the door's health. I repaired and did it again and made a rough calculation that I had got about 1/20 through the door's health. I don't consider "bash the door and repair your weapon 40 times" a particularly good solution, compared to "pick the lock once".

And that is after stealing the smelly items of clothing, all of this required rogue skills to get.

The dirty deed skills are certainly not useless, at least in Cyseal.

I got all of them without rogue skills.
Of course by the time Murphy gave me the perpetrator I already had 2 other clues pointing at it, so it wasn't rather useful anymore. XD

You can easily find the key to murderer's house. Same thing with any locked doors/container in the game.

From what I see, lv 20 locks certainly have a key (or a puzzle switch), so they are not a problem. For lower level chests/doors (lv 5 or 10) you can just break them if you really have a hard time finding the key/switch. And you don't really need to worry about durability because you can attack with spells. This is one reason to get XP from picking locks.

However, if the game is to give XP for lockpicking, how much XP should it offer? Levelled to area/player lv/individually set? Not to forget how many ability points, which you get from hard-earned level, you have to spend. Ability points can be better spent elsewhere.

Giving XP for picking a lock or disarming a trap would set the standard that "this is the CORRECT way to do it". That goes against the as-you-please design of the game, where bashing something is supposed to be as valid an option as picking it, and setting off a trap from a safe distance (or just barreling through it with protections... or without!) is supposed to be as valid as disarming it.

Please don't reward only one type of problem solving. The reward for getting through traps and locked stuff is that YOU GET THROUGH IT to whatever is on the other side. No need to add XP to it and certainly not to only one of the ways of dealing with it.

Lockpicking being worthless is the frying pan. Giving XP for lockpicking is the fire. I'm not disagreeing that lockpicking is worthless, because it is; I'm not saying that it shouldn't somehow be made useful, because it should. However, giving XP for it just creates even bigger problems, because it means all "max XP" playthroughs would require everything to be lockpicked. Lockpicking's worthlessness is a problem which should be solved, but most definitely not solved in that particular manner.

Excuse me, but how is it worthless? It might be less preferred by one as opposed to Personality or Weapon skills but for a sneaky non-violent playthrough I'd say it's a must.

I've recently taken to distracting NPCs with one of my characters while opening doors with another one (I haven't played the game on development stage so it's a feature I never suspected about and I find it very realistic and therefore awesome). You cannot, however, bang those doors open because of the sound produced. You either open the unlocked ones or leave empty-handed (in my case, as I don't have lockpicking).

Having finished the game, I can only think of 2 occasions where Lockpicking was was semi useful:
1) Entering Loic's Cellar right after you enter visit Silverglen. Since you can find 2 Bloodstones there, you are able to unlock the demon that allows you to respec / trade talents for ability points in addition to the forge (which is just more comfortable than using the one in Cyseal).

2) Getting to the hidden servants a bit earlier, although you would have been able to get there very shortly afterwards anyway and those who replay the game already know the spot.

Has there been any other occasion, where Lockpicking did something relevant for you?

The thing is, even if you put several points into Lockpicking, you'd have the same outcome. I actually tried it out, and the result was me going through the game sneaking up on doors and chests, consuming a lockpick, and having it tell me that my lockpicking skill isn't high enough. Which is kind of like what happened to you with zero Lockpicking investment, except it didn't consume lockpicks or ability points.

I imagine lockpicking might still be able to work, but it must be the kind of thing where you need to invest ability points in it as well as find some gear to help pump it - which means without some luck in terms of gear RNG, a Lockpicking character doesn't receive any payoff whatsoever on investment.

I feel part of the problem here is difficulty in creating a consistently successful Lockpicking character. This would be alleviated if 1) there was craftable gear which gives bonuses to Lockpicking, similar to Tooth Belt/Amulet/Rings for Charisma, and 2) there was a Talent which boosts Lockpicking.

However, I feel the biggest problem is the inability to retry: you just get the dreaded "Lockpicking level too low." Instead, there should be some degree of RNG to it: 25% of -1 to your Lockpicking, 25% of +1, 50% chance of no change. You'd only get the "Lockpicking level too low" message when you would need more points in Lockpicking before a success is possible. This way Lockpicking characters would get some degree of feedback from the game regarding the need to put more points in Lockpicking prior to getting utterly stumped the next time they wander into an object that needs it.

Thats right!!!+

i hope Larian Studios will release a balance Patch