Talk:Lockpick

It doesn't even exist yet. wtf? Sirocco 07:23, 30 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Omg they are desperate to imitate WoW..&mdash;[[User:Sigm@|Sig mA

]] 14:39, 5 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Uh, what? You've never heard of lock picks until WoW came out? Oh please. Morrowind had lockpicks, Deus Ex had lockpicks. WoW is not the only game in the world you know? Sirocco 15:01, 5 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Lockpicks have been a game staple in D&D since the 1970's... they're nothing new in the least for the gaming world. -- Gorfax Silverdale

It's the only game I play actually. --&mdash;Sig mA   15:59, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

They're out now. Cost 1500 gold. For instance, Tesserai, Merchant in Mehtani Keys sells it.
 * 1500? Ouch... and I thought normal keys were expensive... Tycn 01:09, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Where exactly is this formula for survival rate coming from? Lorik 01:58, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * The lockpick themselves show the survival rate, however I don't see the need for level/2 for this as only lvl 20 characters can go into hard mode to use one. Did someone just look at a lockpick on a lower character to find this number? -Ezekiel 02:01, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Lockpicks aren't usable exclusively in hard mode, but are required to open hard mode chests. &mdash; [[Image:Fin_sig.gif|User:Kyrasantae]] kyrasantae   02:14, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Two pieces of info I don't see yet that I'd like to know, but can't check until I get out of work. Do lockpicks stack? Does using them give points toward the treasure hunter and/or lucky (when they survive) title? DZwart 13:47, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Lockpicks do stack. However, I'm also wondering if they give points to the treasure hunter and/or lucky title --149.89.1.32 14:10, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Thus far I've only used them in hard mode, so those chests are considered 'high end' and give Treasure Hunter points. However, whether they break or not does not appear to affect the Lucky title.  &mdash; [[Image:Fin_sig.gif|User:Kyrasantae]] kyrasantae   17:37, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * It does now. SarielV 02:42, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Hard mode chance vs. normal mode chance?
Tested on normal mode: 44% chance to retain lockpick after using Luxon chest (I have 14% chance normally with level 2 Lucky title). Please post yours so that we could figure out possible formula. --Mira 03:14, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * normal shiverpeak chest: 42%. lucky 1. btw that note about the scaling of percents needs to be more specific... &mdash; JediRogue  [[Image:JediRogueSig.jpg]] (talk |contribs) 04:46, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * It's an automatic +30%, confirmed by me and several guildies. --Dragonaxe 09:10, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Shing Jea chest in normal mode has 68% chance (level 2 lucky), so it's not flat +30%. I think we'll need some kind of chart that lists key price in correlation with chance to retain lockpick. --Mira 18:58, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Margonite chest: +25% (I had 16% + 25% = 41%).

Do the math
Can someone do the math, and count from what point are the lockpicks better then keys? :P &mdash; Poki#3, 03:22, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * They are always better than keys in HM. :P  Off the top of my head I would say at 30% or so for 600g chests.  Queen Schmuck 03:37, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Ok, here's some math: the number of uses you get (in average) from a lock pick is S = 1 / (1 - X) where X is the probability (a number between 0 and 1) that the lock pick is retained. Assuming that the formula for the probability is similar in the normal mode + some bonus, and using the remarks given above, it looks like the bonus for (at least for the 600g chest) is 0.3. So, if you use lock picks to open 600g chests in normal mode, you'll get in average 1.667 uses out of each if you have no ranks in either relevant title. However, since a lock pick is much more expensive, you want to know how many uses per platinum you get. A 600g key gives 1.667 uses per platinum (UPP) whereas a lock pick with no ranks gives only 1.111 UPP. You only reach the 600g key efficiency with lock picks when you have 4 ranks in both treasure hunting and lucky titles, i.e., an additional 0.2 probability from titles. Thus it looks like you only benefit from lock picks in normal mode if you're quite advanced in both titles.--Tmakinen 07:12, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Lovely analysis (-: -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 09:35, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I had wondered about this as well. Nice work. I TOTALLY missed the displayed % when using my picks. Do all normal mode chests have 30% bonus, if not can we get the %'s for other chests? And perhaps develop a "Key vs. Lockpick (UPP)" table?   [[Image:jkr.jpg]]     10:14, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Which means that 750 gold keys give 1.3333 use per platimun, making its worth debatable with little title investment. and elite mission keys have now 0.8 use per platimun which makes them inferior to lockpiks even with 0 titles. Yay, now I can stop storing all the stoneroot keys I will never use. Grima.worm@seznam.cz 11:59, 20 April 2007 (CDT) (logged off)
 * Great Tmakinen. Now we just have to write up a table for all key prices from 600 and add it to the article ^^ &mdash; Poki#3 [[Image:Poki.jpg|19px|My Talk Page :o]], 17:03, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * If a pick has a 40% (10 always +30 normal mode bonus) chance of surviving, u would need to have it survive twice and open a third to make it cost effective for 600g chests, the chance of surviving 2 chests is 16%. 16% is not good odds for 600g chests.  HOWEVER, i think lockpicks will have great value in the FoW and elite miss, 250g less, and have a 40% of opening another chest.  UW, desolation, and SF chests only have to survive once to make them cost effective,  and its up to you to decide if 20% is good betting odds. Just to finish off the "table" idea: 50g key=20 UPP; 80g key=12.5 UPP; 200g key=5 UPP; 300g key=3.375 UPP; 450g key=2.22 UPP; 1.25plat key=.8 UPP;  Eric368 20:56, 21 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I added the break-even point information for each type of key in the table. For updates and further reference, the formula in question is R = 1 - B - C/P where R and B are the fractional (between 0 and 1) retention rate and bonus, and C and P are the cost of the key and the lock pick, respectively. Unsurprisingly, it's a bad idea to use lock picks for starter chests. A bit surprising is that it's always better to have lock picks than highest level keys.--Tmakinen 04:32, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
 * In other words, once you got treasure hunter (4) and lucky (4), (or (5)+(3) or (6)+(1) or (7)+(0)), it makes sense to carry a bunch of lockpicks instead of multiple kinds of 'high-end' keys. still, a luxury for few players. Foo 14:04, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

Rename page?
Since the ingame use is "lockpick", can we change page's name to that, then redirect "lock pick" to lockpick? Queen Schmuck 03:37, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I also agree with this. The standard is to label pages based on the games spelling (even if the game uses an incorrect term/spelling). I added the redirect as a stop-gap measure, until someone could rename the main page.   [[Image:jkr.jpg]]     09:38, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Just Missions?
So the lockpicks only work in missions? Or do they work on all chests? -AJ75
 * Chests that appear as Locked Chests appear in Hard Mode of explorbale areas also.--Renegade26 16:46, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * To clarify that:
 * all chests in all areas of Hard Mode are Locked Chests
 * the only item that can open a Locked Chest is a lockpick
 * The only exceptions would be normally unlocked chests due to quests, but since they are unlocked it doesn't matter anyway. Queen Schmuck 17:54, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Titles

 * Can anyone confirm if retaining the lockpick after use works towards the lucky title? And make sure that opening chests goes towards the treasure hunter title? Rhia Aryx 18:56, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * i don't know about the lucky part but i can confirm the chests do count towards treasure hunter --Fatigue 19:05, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

survival chart
i just added this basic survival chance chart: i am pretty new at editing stuff in gwiki though. I'd like to make the chart like the one below except having the "Lucky" text centered over the 0...5 columns

someone's help would be greatly appreciated. making it better in any way would be appreciated, but thats just what id like to see. thanks --Fatigue 19:03, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * fixed. Queen Schmuck 19:15, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Locked Chests
Would someone mind adding a section on the Locked Chests, please? I was wondering what kind of treasure chests Hard Mode had to offer. I had to go to the Lockpick, and then from there search for "Locked Chests" to get my answer. (I'd add it myself, but I haven't even touched Hard Mode yet. ^_^;) Gwen Shadowsound 11:09, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I think we really shouldn't and something here about the locked chests. It should be, imho, a seperate page dealing with the drops.  in case you're wondering, my party of 3 ppl 1 hero in plains of jarin encountered 3 locked chests.  out of the 9 drops from the chests 7 golds 2 grapes.  5 golds were maxed stats w/ non max mods.  2 golds were non maxed w/ non max mods.  the 2 graps were max w/ non max mods.  Lowest req from our run was 10, highest 12.  maybe we should actually work on one of those chest drops pages from the statistic project?  Ferdoc 11:29, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, yeah. Sorry, that's not what I meant. Drop rates should stay on their separate pages. What I meant was that someone should add a little line saying that, for example, "A chest in Hard Mode will always be labeled as a Locked Chest, regardless of the region." But I don't even know if that's true yet, which is why I haven't added it. Gwen Shadowsound 18:54, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * True to my knowledge. Only Locked Chests. &mdash; [[Image:Fin_sig.gif|User:Kyrasantae]] kyrasantae   04:36, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

Lockpicking
Just a brief voicing of my opinion. I don't care for titles influencing gameplay like this. Luck title is very bad because of the scenseless grinding required to attain it. Treasure hunter is bad because of it being character based, not account based. I also am still not a fan of salvage skill being based on character based titles. It your salvage skill is going to be effected by treasure hunter and wisdom, then treasure hunter and wisdom should be account based. The only title effects I approve of are sunspear and lightbringer. But at the same time I dissaprove of PvE only skills. Just the opinion of a single vocal minority... so I guess it doesn't matter. However, I do like that they consolidated keys into just one type for hard. --Mooseyfate 13:43, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Yeah, it sucks that I have to storage, log out and log in as my monk if I want to salvage valuable items, she is the only character with any sort of high Wisdom, these should be based on my account. I am also not sure I like Sunspear and Lightbringer being per character, I am getting a bit tired of grinding for those titles so I can play my 8th character through game. While on the subject, Skill Hunter should also be per account, there is no sane (outside of wanting the title) reason that any character would need all the Elites from all the professions, I should only need to have each skill once to have the title across my account (though that creates problems if I delete a character). --Heurist 14:57, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Treasure hunter
I assume opening with a lockpick counts towards treasure hunter, yes?-Silk Weaker 23:36, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Look above, Kyrasantae says you get Treasure Hunter points, but not (Un)Lucky points. --Thervold 02:46, 21 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't know about using lockpicks on low-level chests though. (Why one would is beyond me.) &mdash; [[Image:Fin_sig.gif|User:Kyrasantae]] kyrasantae  04:35, 21 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm going to go do it now, in the name of SCIENCE. (Even though I'm broke) &mdash;Aranth 14:56, 21 April 2007 (CDT)
 * No, it doesn't give title points. Unsurprising, on reflection... on the plus side, with a 65% chance to retain the pick, I successfully retained it :D &mdash;Aranth 15:07, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

FoW/UW
How useful are lockpicks in areas such as FoW and the UW?
 * Depends on where you stand, title-wise. See the break-even point info on key bonus table--Tmakinen 04:39, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

Break even
I duno who added that Break-even thing, but personally i do NOT understand that. so iether explain it better or take it out. Right now its to confusing.
 * It's telling you what your lockpick survival chance (from the first chart) must be for lockpicks to be as cost-effective as keys. Specifically, it let's you know whether you should buy keys or lockpicks for the chests in the area you intend to enter. BigAstro 14:58, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
 * It might be better to call it something else than "break even". Perhaps it should be called "Minimum Survival Rate Required to make the Lockpick more Cost-Effect than the Key". A bit verbose but if I'm correct in understanding what its supposed to be, it seems quite a bit clearer.&mdash; JediRogue  [[Image:JediRogueSig.jpg]] (talk |contribs) 15:23, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, only the 750 and 1250 keys are of any concern. Basically, you would always want to use lockpicks on 1250 key chests. But yeah, a quick read of that table doesn't tell you much until you think about it for a bit. --8765 15:28, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I didn't understand it either until I went back and read it. The second column in the chart is the bonus obtained from normal mode.  I edited the chart to clarify this.  Hopefully it should be more clear.
 * lol? Hard mode only has one type of chests, the "Locked Chests". Of course the other are for Normal Mode <.< &mdash; Poki#3 [[Image:Poki.jpg|19px|My Talk Page :o]], 23:54, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

The row in the break-even table for 50gold keys seems unnecessary, as keys of that value can only be obtained in Pre-Searing, where lockpicks don't drop. Whilst it might be nice to keep it for interest's sake (with a note stating this), I personally would have no issues with it being removed altogether. RossMM 06:02, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * That raises a question. How has it been possible to figure out the bonus percentage for those chests, then?--Tmakinen 07:35, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Keys in post-searing Ascalon are 50g. BigAstro 19:39, 29 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah. I opened a chest in Old Ascalon. &mdash;Aranth 20:27, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Break even values are misleading. I'm sorry but opening a 1250g chest with a 1500g lock pick you are not going to get an item that IDs for 1500g. You don't even break even buying the 1250g key. In fact the only way to break even is for the lockpick to not break enough times for the gold ID values to exceed the price of the lockpick. Which means on average at least 4 to 5 openings per chest minimum. Lower end chests (those that don't count towards treasure hunter) nearly all the time will need over 5 openings since IDed values are significantly lower. 50g and 80g chests by the chart you already have to have the titles at max for breaking even according to the chart so there is no point in opening them at all. If the 60% chance is correct for 600g key chests then you only have a 2/10,000% chance to break even, 1250g key chests 7/10,000,000% chance of breaking even. In other words you will not break even ever using lockpicks on any chests in either mode, the chance of opening the chests enough times for the golds to pay for the key are astronomical. Only if you consider the loot gained from killing mobs in addition to the golds gotten out of the chest or gamble at the chance of finding a buyer for the item or upgrade can you even consider breaking even in which case you will almost always break even as long as you don't go right for the chests and kill sufficient mobs to cover the cost of the key/lockpick. Due to the extremely crappy trade ability is it worth hours of trying to pawn off the golds or an upgrade from them to cover the cost of the keys? To sum this up in one question is it honestly worth opening normal mode chests with lockpicks or is this some clever design from anet to sink even more gold opening chests than keys have been in the past? &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.21.36.163 (talk &bull; contribs) 19:11, 29 April 2007 (CDT).
 * break even compaired to regular keys, not against the merchant value of the drops. the low return value of keys is another topic. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 19:27, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Lucky/Unlcuky
Well I just had my first chest in Hard Mode with a lockpick and have 25 unlucky now... however a question I have is... If you use the lockpicks in low end areas and they are retained... does that count toward lucky?


 * Thats the exact same question that was on my mind--Blade [[Image:smallscout.png]] (talk|contribs) 19:59, 26 April 2007 (CDT)
 * A fast way to get VERY high lucky if you just open a ton of ascolon chests. Need to test that. Kelvin Greyheart 20:33, 26 April 2007 (CDT)
 * eggactly what I was thinking :P that was me for the first post by the way--Saji-Kun 21:21, 26 April 2007 (CDT)
 * While I can't say for sure about lucky points, I can definately confirm that low-end chests give UNlucky points >:( --Lavos 21:47, 26 April 2007 (CDT)
 * So no one thus far has actually looked into it... perhaps I will later... If I do I will post what I find here for sure.--Saji-Kun 04:57, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I can confirm that retaining a lockpick on Istan chests gives 250 Lucky points, so i bet it counts for all chests in Normal mode. --[[Image:Roland_icon.png]]Roland of Gilead (talk) 07:01, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks. So now we just need a economics on the Lucky/Unlucky title... -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 07:36, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Done. See Luck titles guide. --[[Image:Roland_icon.png]]Roland of Gilead (talk) 11:34, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

Wrong numbers on economic table?
I have Lucky title rank 0 and Treasure hunter rank 1, so according to the table, I should have a 57% chance to retain a lockpick. However, I actually have a 67% chance. Screenshot can be provided if requested. The numbers need to be confirmed. **Edit** I am talking about opening Istani chests, 80 gold per Istani key. --Roland of Gilead (talk) 07:09, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, according to the first table your base (hard mode) retain rate is 13%, and if you open a 80g chest, you get a +54% bonus on top of that, as shown in table 2. 13% + 54% = 67% and that's exactly what you get, there's nothing wrong with the data--Tmakinen 07:29, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks for clearing that up. I find it a very confusing table indeed. For the 50g chests it says that the break-even cannot be reached because one would need a +42% chance from base chance and titles, but if the maximum base&title bonus is 43%, it should be possible, no? Same goes for the note on the base chance table, where it says the chance for a lvl 20 character is 10%...41%. Shouldn't that be 10%..43%? --[[Image:Roland_icon.png]]Roland of Gilead (talk) 08:03, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Yes, and I did that just now. The article was made when the presumed max Lucky title was 5, but it was just recently revealed to be 6. &mdash; Poki#3 [[Image:Poki.jpg|19px|My Talk Page :o]], 09:43, 27 April 2007 (CDT)


 * And as I've just noticed, the table also doesn't account for the new price of lockpicks. Both the most expensive high-end keys and lockpicks cost 1250g, but since lockpicks have at least a 10% chance of being retained (saving 125g per opening on average), they are even cheaper than those normal mode 1250 keys. The other numbers should be calculated accordingly. --[[Image:Roland_icon.png]]Roland of Gilead (talk) 07:24, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

Discounnted lockpicks table
I took the liberty of crunching the numbers for 1200g lockpicks. 1 The varying cost of opening a chest with a normal key is represented by the ease in which a lockpick can open it. With more expensive keys, the chests are harder for the lock pick to open, and the inherent survival chance bonus is lower.

Note that at the discount price, 1200g lockpicks are cheaper than 1250g keys, so there's no reason not to use them instead. The same applies to 600g chests when you have a 20% bonus or above, which is pretty easy to acquire. Further data can be found on my user page.

~ BlueNovember 13:34, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks for this chart and the info on your page. Can this info be added to the main article? It certainly has relevant value for those who have access to discounted lockpicks.   [[Image:jkr.jpg]]     18:12, 27 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Certainly. ~ BlueNovember 20:37, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

I don't think this information really makes sense. The value of a lockpick isn't necesarily related to the value of lesser keys, because the drops are different from locked chests. I could buy many many Istani keys for the same price as a lockpick, but I'm not going to get any treasure hunter points or decent loot from the chests. Until we know the drop rates for locked chests I don't think a comparison can really be made. --Jasmine Jasminethetender 18:24, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * The calculations are based on whether it is better to use a Lockpick or a normal key on the same chest, not the relative drop rates between hard mode and normal. RossMM 18:36, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Um, why am I italicised? RossMM 18:38, 27 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Jasmine's sig had some apostrophe's floating around. I fixed it here. ~ BlueNovember 20:37, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

So the difference is between using a key in normal mode or a lockpick in normal mode. This didn't really seem clear.
 * Yes, exactly. I will try to clarify the table. ~ BlueNovember 21:26, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

Keys
Is there an actual reason to use keys anymore unless you've only just started playing the game...? -203.218.174.219 00:35, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Lockpicks drops suck :) Solus   00:36, 28 April 2007 (CDT)


 * To clarify, the droprate on a lockpick is...well...probably even lower than that on a Key. And using a lockpick doesn't get you any better or worse items than using a key. Compared to Keys, one shouldn't really bother with a Lockpick unless they have (a) lots of money; (b) are too lazy to buy different keys; and/or (c) they have a high Lucky title. Otherwise, keys are pretty much always more feasible economically. Exception of course is in Hard Mode, where you can only use Lockpicks. Unless ANet changes the price of lockpicks significantly, this will always be true. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 00:59, 28 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Or if you buy lockpicks at 1200g from outpost merchant or 1300g from someone selling lockpicks as an outpost holder. I would also disagree that "having lots of gold" is a good reason to use lockpicks :P. The titles required to make opening 600g chests with lockpicks are the points in this table where the bonus is 30% or greater. If you are using 1200g or 1300g lockpicks, refer to the tables in my user page.
 * --BlueNovember 08:20, 28 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Hey, BlueNovember, want to make a chart which takes into account the below discussion? (Amount of gold that lockpicks save when going for Lucky/Unlucky titles in addition to going for opening chests/Treasure Hunter, which is fairly significant, imo). -Scyfer 22:49, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Lucky Title Change
Lockpicks just got a big boost with the additional lucky title points they add. As per the Luck Title's Guide Page, the tickets won / hour over the gold cost / hour means each lucky point is worth 1.13 gold, which boosts the value of a retained lockpick by 283.3 gold. For someone with a chance of retention of 40% (600 gold key chest, no titles), the lockpick is now worth 1188.9 gold (as opposed to 1000 gold, originally). Still less than the 1500 gold they cost, this lowers the "break even" point if one is willing to invest. If one assigns any worth to the unlucky title, then it has additional worth. For math sake, the chance of earning lucky points is "Lucky point chance = ( 1 / ( 1 - X ) ) - 1", or for the 40% example, 0.6667.
 * Exactly what I was thinking, but didn't bother to calculate the exact worth increase. Added in a note about this to the main page. -Scyfer 22:06, 28 April 2007 (CDT)
 * So the worth of lockpicks is increased approx this much: 283xyour lockpick retention % + (unlucky cost per pt)x(break %). I'm lazy, someone calc that if they want and incorporate it into another table ;) -Scyfer 22:11, 28 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Ignore the above. According to the math on the lucky title guide, the worth added to lockpicks would be approx: (250lucky pts)x(0.886gold per lucky point)x(retention rate in decimals) + (25unlucky points)x(12.6gold per unlucky point)x(1.0-retention rate in decimals). Or 221.5gold x(retention) + 315gold x(1.0-retention rate) = 22.15+ 283.5 gold = 305.6gold for a base 10% retention rate. (Scyfer 22:16, 28 April 2007 (CDT)
 * This works out to about 10% (8% for lowest two chest and 11% for highest chest categories) decrease in native retention rate needed to benefit from lockpicks. I.e. If you are going for Lucky and/or Unlucky title as well, lockpick usage saves you 305.6 gold per lockpick use (break or retained, most of the value coming in from money saved from 9 Rings unlucky title gains), which increases the range of chests which you should open with lockpicks instead of keys. If you are only playing Rings of Fortune and only want to go for the unlucky title (?!) the amount of gold that lockpicks save you is way less (4x 5x? less). -Scyfer 22:38, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

What?
How can you say, in order to "break even" you need to retain the lockpick 97% of the time? If you open 10 low-end chests and retain a lockpick 9 times and lose a lockpick 1 time, you do not break even. You lost 1k (1500 - 500g = 1k)

Would it not be more accurate to state that you must retain a lockpick a certain number of times before you break even, Ie: opening high-end chests with a lockpick would only need to be retained once in order to make a profit.

You can retain one at 10% and break even and you can not retain one at 99% and NOT break even.

Thinking about it more.... if you open two chests with one lockpick, you saved the cost of the second key. If you buy one lockpick and open 100 chests with it at 10%, by mere luck, you most definitely made a profit.
 * Does anyone really care PRECISELY how efficient each of their lockpicks was? People care about the entire group of potential lockpick/key purchases. It's trivial to calculate how many retains you need for a single lockpick to be more price-efficient, and not really useful at all (except as a step on the way to calculating the break-even point). You can only use it to judge things that have already happened, and thus those you have no control over. &mdash;Aranth 04:39, 29 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, there are many people calling the given tables confusing which only goes to show that basic concepts of the probability theory are inadequately covered by the standard curriculum. To the anonymous person who complains about the table: the number of uses you get out of a lock pick is a random variable, and you can estimate the expectancy value for that by the given probability for retainment. We have already done the math for you and you only have to compare the values on the table to the number the lock pick helpfully provides to you when you use it to find out whether you are making a good or a bad bet. And as Aranth points out, you're mixing a priori with a posteriori which doesn't help a lot.--Tmakinen 06:04, 29 April 2007 (CDT)