Locked Doors. Is this a dead issue, or can we lobby for a change?

Do Rogues and Bards get some spells and CotH in those zones too!

Great!

You sure babble about nonsense a lot

The point he was making is that if you want to give everyone the abilities that rogues and bards have then why not give everyone mage abilities too.

Picking locks isn't exactly class defining. Rogues don't walk around all day doing it. Call of the Hero would be more comparable to SoS and no one is asking for that.

If we're going to start honoring class defining abilities I'm gonna need everyone to line up and hand in their:

• Familiars
• Port clickies
• Harvest copycat abilities
• Frenzied Devastation copycat abilities
• etc.

i havent played in years but when i did it was seriously hard to get people to open doors not to mention, sometimes you want to do something at 3 am and no ones on how about something crafted by rogues consumable or not. Unfortunately most of my friends no longer play so relying on other people isnt a reliable option for old content,, heck getting a rogue to do the krypt in sebillis was hard enough back when it was current because of the lousy itemizeation of it ,

Mage CotH is a convenience, not a necessity. If I am able to walk my Mage to spot X, I can have any other class walk to spot X. All CotH does is makes it faster/easier to get multiple characters to spot X. If there is a locked door between my Mage and spot X, my Mage will not be able to get there without some means of opening it.

Ports are a convenience. I can get any class to even most remote zones without wizard or druid. With them, it is just easier and faster.

Take pretty much any other class-specific ability, it normally makes some aspect if game faster/easier.

Lockpickng, AFAIK, is the only thing in game where certain class presence is REQUIRED to access particular pieces of content.

Lockpicking should make getting past a locked door faster/easier. Otherwise, for every locked door there should be a mob dropping the key, or a quest that awards a key. So I can choose to camp the mob/do the quest OR bring a rogue. Just like I can decide to run somewhere or look for a druid. Just as I can choose to run around the zone or find a tracker. Just as I can choose to grind my lost xp back or find a 96% rezzer.

They had that already and nerfed it: ie Entry to Lair of Terris Thule used to be accessible by level bypass
For those that remember this was all an intentional nerf when Artisan Prize came into play and still Very useful to higher levels. They sort of overdid it with nerfing all locked doors, but it was intentional.

I'm unhappy they "fixed" it. It reminds me of the monk pulling thing. It was never planned but they left it in because a) players wanted it b) it was emergent and even interesting. It was giving crowd control powers to monks they were never intended to have. The same is the case with classes that can illusion or in some cases people who have illusion-items. This was allowing them to bypass locked doors in some/all cases; something never intended.

It shouldn't have been fixed. But honestly, if it had been me, I don't think I would have designed it this way. I think interdependence doesn't have to be exclusive. Having vendor sold magic scrolls that can unlock doors is acceptable. In most RPGs this is completely normal to have potions or magic items that can give you abilities you normally wouldn't have because you didn't train a certain skill or play a certain class. It shouldn't be much different in MMORPGs, except with due consideration given to inderdependence. If the items or vendor sold consumables are too easily acquired then players will more often choose soloing over grouping, threatening to make MMORPG more sterile social environment. I believe this can be balanced, but how many players want to be semi-reliant on others? This is also a problem for companies that don't want to invest resources in balancing these mechanics. The result is the diversity of mechanics will be narrowed to a trickle--resulting in a shallower interdependence system. This would mean things being more cookie cutter or spreadsheet-like, like between classes. It's sad we're in a climate where soloing and casual play are so strongly favored by mainstream, and companies so pressured to cut costs. Some of this has to do with how AAA games are increasingly expensive to make. As gamers, we're getting a bigger bang for our buck, but for developers the financial situation is worsening.

Little late, but any server that is past (I believe) DoDH can use the Shroudkeepers in PoK to shroud into a goblin rogue then be traded a set of lockpicks. They have 200/320 skill so you might have to spam click the locked book in tranq for a few minutes for really high level locks. This will however require at least a 2nd account but F2P should work fine unless they are restricted from shrouds (no idea).

I'm also of the camp that believes every locked door should have a key SOMEWHERE, with rogue/bard picking being a convenience not a hard requirement. Sebilis Crypt for example it would make sense lorewise for there to be a quest out of like Cabilis to regain entry to the tomb of their dead, or even just have it drop off of the Crypt Caretaker if you want to be lazy about it. Same for Emp Chottal and his door.

Also door illusioning wasn't fixed just because of TLPs. We certainly helped, but the squeaky wheel got the grease and way too many people on these forums just advised everyone to illusion through doors constantly which got eventual dev attention.

Why not just give a "Master" key item that if you are level 115 it lets you unlock doors of Level 85 or 90 and below? I'd even do a quest for that.

Ask someone to open it. They gave almost every Rogue ability to freaking pets years ago.
First casters wanted our unique invis to live and dead.
So glad I got that nerfed when spell stacking was introduced.
Casters were using both at the same time til I reminded the devs that only Rogues were supposed to pull that off and they changed it back.

Now you want our lockpick ability.

What's next you want pickpocket too?

You are a little late to reply on this. I ended up using a heroic bard, and learned that you can raise lockpicking to 400 in less than 15 mins. I sent a message to Prathun (and Dreamweaver) letting them know to disregard my pestering about it.


Things to consider when asking someone to help you:

1. It has to be convenient for you (You're going to be online for a while)
2. The person you ask, it has to be convenient for them, as they have to be doing basically nothing at all when you ask them to travel to you, travel with you down to a dungeon or invis/sneak their way to you, open the door, then gate out with a potion or via your toon.
3. Or if you can't catch anybody like that, and you get a bunch of no's from people who don't know you, if they even reply (or aren't afk-online in the first place) then you try to prearrange with them, it still becomes an "appointment" that fits your schedule and their schedule.

-- Perhaps you play on a TLP where this is a trivial matter. On these servers it is a non issue since many people are online at those levels, and the server is busy -- consider a live server, and with server merges on the horizon, that practically confirms the obvious that their are some live servers with very low populations.


Things to consider if trying to do it yourself (since it's 2020, not 1999 populations/older content):

1. Not everybody has the means to multi-box, a rogue or bard, or the means to push their computer a 3rd or 4th box/window to add to their current setup.
2. Not everybody has the time or desire to find out this issue (that doors are still locked 20 years later, although flags have been removed for most keyed zones) and then suddenly go level up a Bard or Rogue to a decent level to not die, and whatever the lock picking cap is for that level (I think it's 201/211 or something for level 50 or 60).

Also in my case, not only did i not want to level up a rogue/bard, as stated above, I had never done locking picking before, so this is my fault, but I was uneducated on the fact that lock picks do not use up or break. (I was thinking like an arrow or zerker axe that gets used up, or a lock pick that breaks like Skyrim).

Also skills are known to take a LONG Time to level up, I come from the days of clicking sense heading repeatedly because there was no compass, and you had to level up swimming on you own time, and all your casting/bard-music skills because when a group needed a buff or song (invis song for bards) you can't be burning all your mana failing to cast it, or having the song drop. Also trade skills take a long time I believe, so I had incorrectly assumed that lock picking would take forever as well.

With that, it would have taken me longer than 15mins, but there is a "trick" in Plane of Tranquility the Devs have left alone.



With this essay reply for your drive-by semi-hate, I hope this explains to you the other side of the argument, and if nothing else, remember, it was a request for the devs, not a demand or "I'm quitting and taking my 100 accounts with me!" post.

Where is the hate?
Simply stated that it's one of the few perks Rogues get.
They handed our best combat ability to freaking pets years ago.
If everyone could do everything the game wouldn't be online multiplayer.

Now you want our lockpick ability.

What's next you want pickpocket too?

Being former US Army, and not easily offended to begin with, it wasn't a big deal, but that's not really a professional/civil/kind way to talk to someone. I try to talk to people on the message boards the same way I would in person. Again, not a big deal, no more from me on this, but answering your question.

You seem to have missed Bobbybick's post a few posts up. That's by far the best solution to your issue. Just shroud one of your existing characters into a rogue and bring them along. No need to roll a new box or level any new characters.

I do agree there should be quests or drops for these old keys. Perhaps restrict the keys to an expansion a bit later than the zones themselves if we want to keep bard/rogue lockpicking value as is during those eras on TLP.

I didn't miss it, just don't know anything about how shrouds work, and someone else commented here or in the other longer key thread about it not being a viable solution. I don't remember why they said, again, i've never shrouded. I would probably pay more attention to it now, but I ended up using a free heroic toon I forgot I made back when heroics first came out and it was one free one per account. (made 8 free heroics that day back in like 2013 or whatever)

+1

I don't want to deprive any class of their class-defining abilities but I am in agreement that any open zone or group instance door that is locked but which can be opened by a Bard or Rogue should have a key to it you can earn, whether that is a quest or a drop from a rare spawn (prefer quest), or another method to unlock the door (e.g. obscured lever that opens the door). There were quite a few doors like this in EQ in the past, Jaled Dar for example could be accessed by Rogue/Bard lockpick but there was a key available from Neb's or Zlandicar's quest.

The exception to this would be raid events, since those were designed for a raid party and the design may involve needing Rogues specifically to unlock doors, one of the Gates of Discord raids did this for example.