[AMEND] Locks & Lockpicking

[yerro]

Short description:

 

• Introduce more lockpicking stages based on Lock level
• Rebalance the number of LMB attempts (to allow for more stages)
• Change Lock levels to add extra stages to Lockpicking UI

 

Detailed description:

 

This subject has been brewing in my head for a while. To give you some background, one of my characters has started out as a car thief, and in the course of that stage of their life I've found myself successfully breaking into a lot of cars. I feel like I've thoroughly familiarized myself with the system, enough to be able to pick the lock of practically any car, often in a very short time — usually no longer than a minute, sometimes as quick as somewhere under 20 seconds.

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 The issue I'm trying to tackle with this suggestion is that right now, it seems that it's too easy to pick a lock. And as a follow-up issue, to an experienced player lock level doesn't do /anything/, since it only increases the chance of breaking the lockpick (which, frankly, never happens if you're doing it right). If you're unfamiliar with the script, feel free to refer to the quote box below — hopefully it'll help you get on board with the suggestion and form an opinion of your own.

Quote

• When you're looking at the lockpicking interface, picture a scale of roughly 1 to 100 positions, where you start at 50 in the middle.
• Some of these positions offer more resistance — this is represented through high lockpick wobble & clicking sound. At the same time, a certain small cluster (1-3 positions as it feels) offers less resistance — represented through minimal wobble and no clicking sound. Your goal is to find the latter and hold LMB to pick the lock.
• The entire process of picking a single lock comprises 3 stages — each requiring you to find that one sweet spot where wobble is at its lowest and produces no sound.

 

Now that we're done with the 101, here's a more extensive description of what your main challenge is.

 

• Each tap of A or D moves your position on the scale one click left or right, whereas holding A or D makes it pan over several positions, respectively.
• Ideally speaking, you could tap A or D to try every single position on the scale — this means you're /bound/ to find the spot of no resistance at some point. However, that's where the script challenge comes into play — essentially, your number of LMB attempts against spots that offer resistance is limited. Try picking the bad spot one time too many and your lockpick will break.
• Adding up to the previous point, Lock level increases (or should increase) the chance of your lockpick breaking. In other words, it's supposed to limit the number of LMB attempts available to you even further.
• Once you master the system, you can easily pan over several sections freely and find the spots of no resistance without using up all of your "LMB tries".

It could be that the script isn't working properly, or that I just got lucky with every car that I've tried to steal, but even testing it lockpicking on a friend's level 4 lock didn't provide any additional challenges 4-5 times in a row (essentially, they'd re-/lock the car and I'd try again).

 

Summing it up, breaking into cars provides little to no challenge at all, and more importantly, lock level doesn't seem to matter.

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SOLUTION

 

While I'm not sure if this solution is universal, I feel like it might add the necessary challenge to the process and provide people with some safety when it comes to securing their cars.

 

Seeing as the reduced number of LMB attempts doesn't limit you as a car thief, I feel like Lock levels should increase the number of stages instead. For example, instead of having to find the spot of no resistance 3 times, you'd have to do that 4 or 5 times for additional levels of locks.

 

Commands to add:

 

None.

 

Items to add:

 

None.

 

How would your suggestion improve the server?

 

It would enhance the lockpicking experience by bringing both the thieves and car owners at equal level, whereas both of them would have the opportunity to invest skill or effort into breaking into cars or securing them, respectively.

 

• More stages translates into more time to pick the lock — this could give owners extra safe time to regain access to their car. Sometimes, you can pick into a car even despite its alarm going off and leave the scene before anyone has a time to respond.
• Locks would offer a more linear and perceivable benefit rather than the obscure "chance to break a lockpick".
• Locks would essentially appear more realistic — while we're not talking about massive door locks, multiple stages can still reflect the difficulty of trying to pick a lock.

 

Additional information:

 

Many of you coming here will likely try to resort to arguments in favor of realism, bringing up points about keyless cars and more. Let me remind you that while these points would be technically correct, scripted possibilities are limited and the current lockpicking script is a much-welcomed abstraction that offers much better opportunities than timer-based scripts (aka /vbreakin > wait 300 seconds while being frozen).

 

If you're curious to learn about your options when it comes to roleplaying a car thief, I suggest checking out this GTA guide by Engelbert.

 

Let's try to keep it clean guys!

Edited November 5, 2020 by yerro
Fixed the format, sorry for missing it the first time.

[effion]

Please use the suggestion format.

https://forum.gta.world/en/topic/1146-template-read-before-any-new-suggestion/ 

Edited November 5, 2020 by effion

[Paenymion]

To me it seems like the system is based off Skyrim.  If my assumption is correct, even if you "know" how to do it perfectly, the harder locks were harder because the lockpicks broke very quickly when testing the resistance.  The easier locks allowed you to test resistance more often and not break the pick.  Does that not happen here?

[yerro]

Just now, Paenymion said:

To me it seems like the system is based off Skyrim.  If my assumption is correct, even if you "know" how to do it perfectly, the harder locks were harder because the lockpicks broke very quickly when testing the resistance.  The easier locks allowed you to test resistance more often and not break the pick.  Does that not happen here?

Your comparison is on point — it's essentially a skyrim/oblivion lockpicking system, and I honestly love it!

 

It may have just been my experiences (perhaps I got lucky?), but I've managed to find all the right positions before my lockpicks broke every time. I guess we'd need to hear from more people that have experienced the system to see if lockpicks are more likely to break as they should be.