Crowbar Lock Breaking Chance Increase

[returner]

Hi.

The crowbar has been rendered near-useless for me, in many instances, due to continued failed attempts.

My concern with the high likelihood of a failure is this: One character on my old account was stuck in a prison. Just as people can attack once per day, he can break locks once per day. This, from memory, is how things went down..

He started breaking the lock when he was jailed unfairly.
Person comes in, attempts to hit him, misses.
95% done lock breaking
Person comes in, hits him for 46 damage (already 5% or so damaged).
Lock picking project fails.
Now I have to start it gain but due to weakness it will take DOUBLE the time.
After a day, person comes in and his for 45 damage. (already 51% damaged, now at 94% damage)
Still on my second lock picking project! It's taking forever.
Killed.

There are many instances where lockpicking has unfairly failed once, twice, three times, four times, 20 times in a row. That's a joke.

So I offer two solutions.

1) Increase the chance of lockpicking success by 25-50%
2) The lock is guaranteed to break after 5-10 attempts..

edit: These are independent suggestions, but 1) and 2) would actually not be bad suggestions if combined.

I believe that is fair and reasonable, but what does the Cantr community think?

[Piscator]

Suggestion 1 would likely result in a sure success and suggestion 2 is pretty useless since the chance not to succeed after 5-10 tries is hardly mentionable. I also don't see how this addresses the problem you described, after all you didn't even have the chance to try five times.

How about this? If a lockpicking attempt fails, the lock gets damaged and the next attempt has a higher chance of success. This way your captor would at least have to repair the lock and having a numeral value for lock strength would also make it much easier to implement new types of locks.

[Doug R.]

How about this? If a lockpicking attempt fails, the lock gets damaged and the next attempt has a higher chance of success. This way your captor would at least have to repair the lock and having a numeral value for lock strength would also make it much easier to implement new types of locks.

Agreed. Although, if you make stronger locks, you pretty much have to make stronger lock breakers, which in the end will just make the best lock/lockbreaker the same as the regular lock/crowbar is now.

[returner]

How about this? If a lockpicking attempt fails, the lock gets damaged and the next attempt has a higher chance of success. This way your captor would at least have to repair the lock and having a numeral value for lock strength would also make it much easier to implement new types of locks.

Agreed. Although, if you make stronger locks, you pretty much have to make stronger lock breakers, which in the end will just make the best lock/lockbreaker the same as the regular lock/crowbar is now.

Doug I think you may have misinterpreted what he means.

Lock strength stays the same, you can't improve it.. so it would have a value of, say, 5.. The chance of breaking it in one shot doesn't change, but if you do fail, it drops by anything between 1 and 3, depending on the strength of your character.

These numbers and figures would have to be made up by the resource department for balancing purposes of course, and not by me.

And by the way, in my newest account, in complete honesty I've broken maybe 2 locks successfully out of, honestly, 30++ attempts across all my characters. If I have anything recent I could even back it up with evidence. It's so frustrating OOCly to lose characters to imbecile players who enjoy PK'ing, and it's also OOCly frustrating when you're trying to reclaim a town and none of the locks EVER break, even when you have 3 or 4 people working on them.

For the record, I'm not suggesting this for my own character's benefits, but it seems anyone who can afford 200 grams of iron has the ability to almost guarantee someone's death.

[Snake_byte]

2) The lock is guaranteed to break after 5-10 attempts..

How about this? If a lockpicking attempt fails, the lock gets damaged and the next attempt has a higher chance of success. This way your captor would at least have to repair the lock and having a numeral value for lock strength would also make it much easier to implement new types of locks.

I think these too sound the same... Either way I agree, Locks need a 'health' meter...
Each failed attempt per person working on it would remove 2 points off the lock for a total of 10 points before it's forced open with 100% chance of success. Or 20% per person for 100% total.

[returner]

To save a quote pyramid, I agree with you Snake_byte. That's a good figure too.

[tiddy ogg]

Crowbars are becoming more and more common. Either locks must be strengthened or multiple locks allowed.
Once that's done, yes, let locks be weakened by each attempt.

[returner]

Crowbars are becoming more and more common. Either locks must be strengthened or multiple locks allowed.
Once that's done, yes, let locks be weakened by each attempt.

Good point. Perhaps we can start looking into the locks system - as this is one of the most critical deciders in the outcome of 'PvP'. A lot of complaints have been made about the combat system so perhaps a focus/analysis/review of the locking system is in order.

[SekoETC]

I think lock breaking should give the lock a random amount of deterioration ranging from say 20% to 100% per project and when it reaches 100%, the lock would crumble into nothingness, but it could be repaired, although maybe not at the same time when someone was actively breaking it.

[catpurr]

Can we *please* replace the crowbar with a lockpick?

[Snake_byte]

I think lock breaking should give the lock a random amount of deterioration ranging from say 20% to 100% per project and when it reaches 100%, the lock would crumble into nothingness, but it could be repaired, although maybe not at the same time when someone was actively breaking it.

Exactly, but should it be random?

[SekoETC]

If there was no randomness then all locks could be broken in a certain time unless there was an interruption. Although damage to the lock could be defined by strength of the person wielding the crowbar, but then I think it should take hourly damage rather than some in the end of the project, and the project would be continuous like resting unless the person stops working on it or gets dragged away. I think that would make more sense than applying damage at the end of the day. Then differences could be counted in hours rather than days.

[Snake_byte]

Alright I see a bit, but I've noticed everyone seems to be under the assumption, that only one person at a time will be working on it...
So then two strong men will be able to break it in one or two days...?

Can we *please* replace the crowbar with a lockpick?

I'd prefer that too but they would need a chance to break and vanish... and should require quite a bit to make...

Certain, difficult to obtain, tools to make them, requiring a leather holding pouch, picks made of steel... but container objects can't hold non-divisible objects...

[SekoETC]

More people should certainly be able to do it faster, but there should be some sort of a limit since there's only so many people you can fit around one lock. Also it would make sense if lock breaking gave more tiredness than sewing for example, but then again there are also other projects that should be heavier than others.

[Snake_byte]

A limit sounds good... Two might actually be a good limit to start from, anyway...