Skyrim Players ‘Embarrassed’ To Learn They’ve Been Lockpicking Wrong For Years

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is full of many different systems and mechanics, and it’s part of the reason why it can be such a compelling RPG.

Even after all these years though, there are plenty of things in the game that have flown over players’ heads (including this player writing the article), and sometimes it’s best to just outright get it explained to you.

Skyrim players have just discovered that they’ve been lockpicking the wrong way for years, and now it all makes sense.

As one player posted on the Skyrim Reddit page, they discovered that paying attention to the clicks of a lock can help you to find the spot you need to unlock it. The vibration that triggers when you find it is discernibly different from the clicks on the rest of the lock.

It sounds obvious, but in the past a lot of players tended to just randomly try different parts of the lock until they find the spot that allows them to unlock it. Even the poster says they were “somewhat embarrassed” by how long it took them to figure it out.

The player ends their post by saying this should make the skeleton key “obsolete”, as you can essentially get through Master locks without breaking more than one or two.

A player in the replies shared their alternative method, writing: “I’ve always used the scratches around the lock to visually adjust where I’m picking at. Choose a random spot, slightly rotate just to see if you have wiggle room or not. If you don’t, choose a totally different spot.”

However, some players also feel that lockpicks are so common to find that it ultimately doesn’t matter how you lockpick, even if you burn through 10 of them in a single pick.

“Lockpicks are so plentiful that just doing it by ‘feel’ tends to work for me 99% of the time,” writes another player. “That 1% is for when I'm level 1-3 and run out, but I will end up finding way more in minutes.”

“They don’t weigh anything either so there’s no penalty for carrying more,” another writes. “I usually have around 200 or so in my inventory- I just buy some whenever I’m at a shop that has them.”

It’s worth noting that lockpicks do actually have weight if you’re playing Survival Mode, however. If you’d also like to make things a little more trickier, this mod also makes it so you can carry fewer lockpicks in your inventory, and they’re much less common to find in the world. It might encourage you to find alternate routes past your locked door, or to seek out the correct key.