How To Pick Locks in The Elder Scrolls Online

There are two ways to pick locks in ESO; the first way is to try and force the lock open, which you can accomplish on the PS4 or Xbox One by pressing the Square button (PS4) or the X button (Xbox One) on your controller, on the PC you will use the R key on your keyboard. The other way is to manually pick the lock, the difficultly level determines how much time you have to pick the lock — as an example; an Intermediate difficulty lock will give you 20 seconds to pick the lock.

Steps to pick lock:

Press your Right trigger to engage the pin lock, once the pin starts to wiggle (your controller will vibrate) let go of the Right trigger. Remember where the pin started to wiggle/vibrate at, and not press the right trigger again and release when it gets to the wiggling point of the pin slot. Repeat for each pin thereafter.
If your Lockpick breaks, try to remember the locations of the other pins so you don’t have to repeat the entire process again. Also, if you are running out of time but only have 3 of the 5 pins pressed, you can always try to force it from that point and hopefully you will get lucky and get the chest or door to open.

Upgrading your Lock Picking skills

In your Skills area, where you upgrade your character skills, under the World skills, you will find the Legerdemain skill set which is a passive ability. Here you can upgrade your Locksmith skills which will allow you to Force locks open more easily. Each level of Locksmith increases your chance by the following:
Level 1: 10%
Level 2: 25%
Level 3: 45%
Level 4: 70%
While upgrading this skill will not result in a perfect chance, it will increase the luck of your chances in forcing a lock open. Depending on your character build, and the type of character you are playing, this might be something to consider, although I don’t recommend wasting skills points on this trait.

Practice makes perfect

My best advice is to keep trying to pick locks without using the Force option until you get the hang of it. The Force option will cost you a lot of Lockpicks, especially on the more difficult locks.