[Suggestion] Optional Lockpicking for Chests

@dazed898 Ah, well if you succeed on the first try you'd get the contents you would have got if you turned it in. On each failure that amount is diminished (perhaps to a minimum). So you might try 5 times, then decide to turn it in. You'd end up getting:

Reward = Total - (5 * depreciation_rate)

EDIT: Based on some comments below, I agree that the reward for picking it should be higher than the amount you'd get for turning it in since you don't have to split the profits with the Gold Hoarders.

@bale-crownhart I think the potential reward for a successful first attempt should be at least 1.5x the max turn in amount. Otherwise there's just no point in taking the risk other than to save a little journey time. Plus, since we'd presumably be missing out on faction rep by doing so, extra gold feels like a sensible tradeoff.

@mr-spiderhead @carcinoGenetxc

I think you're both on to something :) I agree.

I didn't want to take it too far and thought that just not needing to haul it back would be incentive enough. However, now that you mention it and that I think about it a bit more, it is possible that RARE will introduce XP upon completion of voyages to further incentivize that sort of thing (based on multiple threads I've been seeing). So perhaps the added gold you'd get for picking it would counter-balance the loss in XP by not having anything to turn in.

Thoughts?

@carcinogenetxc Love it :)

@carcinogenetxc Thinking about it, it feels like perhaps it should take a bit of time to open a chest (like boarding up a hole) or it should be something that can only be done when you first dig up the chest, otherwise people will just open the chest at the first sign of other pirates. Either that or the XP gain for loot would have to be significantly increased in order to make the risk of defending loot worthwhile.

@Bale-Crownhart I'm all for rad lockpicking mechanics in games, but I don't think it'll be Gold Hoarders chests - I don't have the exact quote, but in Tales from Sea of Thieves (the lore book) it states that the locks on Gold Hoarder's chests cannot be picked (because they are magical or something?).

@bodhislam True, I remember this as well, but something tells me that just a cover story for not wanting to build in the mechanic. Clearly they write the lore so it could be anything they want :)

"After years of believing the magical seals were impenetrable, a daring pirate with the aid of dark magic and a bit of luck managed to infuse a set of lockpicks with a counter-spell. These picks, now obtainable through <XYZ>, enable daring scalawags to bypass the enchantment. Beware though, all magic comes with a price, and clumsy hands may discover they should have occupied themselves with a tankard of grog instead."

:)

@bale-crownhart Perfect - love it.

@bale-crownhart said in [Suggestion] Optional Lockpicking for Chests:

Ahoy!

Loving the game so far. Been taking my time and I'm right around 20/20/20 with no rush.

I was thinking about how the Gold Hoarders work and how they own the keys to all chests and that's why we need to run them back to a rep. Well, are we pirates or are we pirates??

I think it could be cool to have the option to try and "pick the lock" on any chest instead of returning it to an outpost. Each tier of chest would have a difficulty associated with it and each time you fail to pick it, it reduces the amount of gold you can get from it so that you can't just endlessly try and pick it. Added difficulty would be not knowing how much a failed attempt will "cost you" so that you might fail 3 times, turn it in and get 10g, or 200g. It's a gamble.

The mechanic could be something similar to Elder Scrolls Online (or whatever Rare comes up with :) )

I think any pirate in their right mind would be trying to pry open a chest with a dagger or set of picks rather than dutifully returning it to some blowhard on an island. I mean, it's made of wood!

EDIT: If you do manage to pick the lock, the gold payout should be higher than it would be for turning it in since the Gold Hoarders wouldn't be taking a cut of the profits for opening the chest. (thank you to @mr-spiderhead @carcinoGenetxc)

In addition to you not getting reputation with any faction, but more gold instead, given you manage to successfully pick the lock on your first try, of course...